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I fully agree with what you said since my mother suffered from Alzheimer's. Still, she was fairly fit up until her death.

What is interesting is that Bill Gates (born 1955) is now 62 years of age and as you get older the chances of getting some sort of dementia increases. In fact, the reference I provided makes the following statement "Starting at age 65, the risk of developing the disease doubles every 5 years."

Of course, Bill Gates could be unselfish and I do commend him for the donation although I really do have to ask why did he wait for so long?

2) Stop prescribing antibiotics in novel classes for routine things like ear infections and sinus infections. Studies show that most of those will clear up on their own without antibiotic treatment, but nobody wants to be the guy who feels miserable but doesn't get a Z-Pak or some fluroquinolones as treatment.

Recurring sinus and ear infections can lead to permanent hearing loss. Source: http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/disorders/causes.htm
That's actually a good example when the usage of antibiotics is appropriate. Not for the first infection or for a mild one. However, a grandmother of mine lost her hearing after an ear-infection on one side which hampered her for the rest of her life. That infection occurred in the time before antibiotics were invented.

''The semiconductor industry traditionally reduces the cost of products by 10 to 15 percent a year,'' he said, but 'hearing aids go up 8 percent a year annually'' and have for the last 20 years."

The digital hearing aid was in its infancy twenty years ago.

There were two manufacturers in the nineties, now there are over twenty.

There are features and advanced signal processing schemes available in current digital hearing aids that do have significant advantages over those found in analog instruments.

Gain Processing. One of the primary benefits associated with flexible gain-processing schemes is the potential for increased audibility of sounds of interest without discomfort resulting from high intensity sounds. While this is more generally a benefit of compression rather than digital processing per se, the greatly increased flexibility and control of compression processing provided by DSP--such as input signal-specific band dependence, greater numbers of channels, and kneepoints with lower compression thresholds--can lead to improved audibility with less clinician effort. Expansion, the opposite of compression, has also been introduced in digital hearing aids. This processing can lead to greater listener satisfaction by reducing the intensity of low-level environmental sounds and microphone noise that otherwise may have been annoying to the user.

Digital Feedback Reduction (DFR). The most advanced feedback reduction schemes monitor for feedback while the listener is wearing the hearing aid. Moderate feedback is then reduced or eliminated through the use of a cancellation system or notch filtering.

Digital Noise Reduction (DNR). This processing is intended to reduce gain, either in the low frequencies or in specific bands, when steady-state signals (noise) are detected. Although research findings supporting the efficacy of DNR systems are mixed, they do indicate that the DNR can work to reduce annoyance and possibly improve speech recognition in the presence of non-fluctuating noise.

Digital Speech Enhancement (DSE). These systems act to increase the relative intensity of some segments of speech. Current DSE processing identifies and enhances speech based either on temporal, or more recently, spectral content. DSE in hearing aids is still relatively new, and its effectiveness is largely unknown.

Directional Microphones and DSP. The ability of directional hearing aids to improve the effective signal-to-noise ratio provided to the listener is now well established. In some cases, however, combining DSP with directional microphones can act to further enhance this benefit. In some hearing aids, DSP is used to calibrate microphones, control the shape of the directional pattern, automatically switch between directional and omnidirectional modes, and through expansion, reduce additional circuit noise generated by directional microphones.

Digital Hearing Aids as Signal Generators. Since digital hearing aids have a DSP at their heart, they are able to generate--as well as to process--sound. Current digital hearing aids use this capability to perform loudness growth and threshold testing in order to obtain fitting information specific to an individual patient's ears in combination with a specific hearing aid. Sound levels also can be verified through the hearing aid once it is fit. This technology has the potential both to increase accuracy of hearing aid fittings and potentially streamline the fitting process by reducing the need for some external equipment.

Digital Hearing Aids: Current "State-of-the-Art"

The geek will focus on DSP --- which looks easy enough, at least on paper --- and forget every other aspect of the problem. The microphone, for example.

A partnership supported by NIH and NASA, emerging from the 1995 survey of federal agencies, could potentially revolutionize the technology used for di

Miniaturization + selling into a fairly limited-size market CAN cost that much.

R&D costs to design the device are fairly fixed - whether or not you build 1 device, or a million devices, you still need to figure out how to fit the features you want into a unit of the appropriate size.

ASHA reports that an estimated 31.5 million people in the US have hearing loss of any kind. Of that, approximately 12.5 million people own hearing aids, and 11.1 million wear them regularly.

Compare that with the numbers of smart phones in circulation, then factor in that these are medical devices and thus require significantly stricter quality & safety controls and testing, and you might get a sense of why the per-unit share of R&D costs would be significantly higher in hearing aids than in smartphones.

Same applies for in-ear shooting protection: how many thousands or millions of these units do you think they sell each year, versus the size of the smartphone market? "in-ear hearing protection for sport shooting" is a pretty specific market niche. It's pretty regular for niche products to cost more - I'd be surprised if the people making the multi-thousand dollar sport shooting protection systems make and sell more than a few tens of thousands of them in a year.

Here's the Consumer Reports article on hearing aids
http://www.consumerreports.org/health/healthy-living/home-medical-supplies/hearing/hearing-aids/overview/hearing-aids-ov.htm

and here's a Washington Post article about it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062201623.html

Unfortunately it's 2 years old, and the ratings are behind a paywall (CR doesn't take ads, and they've got to pay the bills somehow).

Also unfortunately they only tested hearing aids selling for $1,800 to $6,800 per pair.

They said there's about a 100% markup, so there's room to negotiate.

What I was really looking for, and what I couldn't find, was an article from an audiology journal which rated the low-priced hearing aids. They said that there were $500 hearing aids that were quite adequate for most people.

Can anybody who follows this research help me out with some cites?

Link to article aja.asha.org

Link to blog talking about article: blog.starkeypro.com

As a person who suffers from tinnitus let me assure you I would quite happily snap your neck if you used a device on me that caused that kind of damage. Hearing damage can not only result in hearing loss but also on the permanent extraordinarily irritating world of never off irritating whistles and screeches. Those idiots better wake up to themselves before they get hit with multi million dollar law suits from innocent bystanders http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/disorders/noise.htm.

Fact: Brooke's brain isn't growing. that's an undeniable fact. You can tell by measuring the circumference of the head - doctors do it all the time. No tools needed other than a measuring tape. Or haven't you noticed that the skull gets bigger as the kid gets older, to accommodate a growing brain?

Fact: Contrary to the article, Broke's communications are NOT consistent with "9 to 12 months old" but with the instinctive sounds of 0 to 3 months, with - maybe - some a bit more advanced. Anything else is projection.

The rest follows.

So the real question is - is there a self-aware entity in there? From the scant, contradictory information in the article, maybe, maybe not. If there isn't what's your problem? At that point, it's not like we're dealing with someone old where "Elvis has left the building", but more like "Elvis was never here." BTW - I did preface my statement with the caveat "without more information", which should have told you that I wasn't making any absolute declaration as to what should be done in Brooke's case, since the article doesn't give us enough to do more than speculate.

The video doesn't play on linux. "Her mental age is estimated at ..." - based on the evidence in the article that the only tissue that grows on her is hair and nails, would be speculative at best. From the article, her affect is extremely low, she's completely non-verbal, just grunting and other noises - this is NOT congruent with a normal mental age of 9 months to 1 year. At best you're looking at 4 to 6 months, maybe less. Instinct, not learning.

Also, post-birth abortion isn't my invention - there's over 1 million hits. It's part of the english language. Get over it already.

Culling, by any name, may offend the sensibilities, but there are times when it's justified. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell solely from the article, but certainly parents should have the option when confronted with the possibility of something like this. If there were a screening test, it's doubtful that many parents would opt to bring such a child to term.

There's plenty of drugs that'll do that for you. You can Google "ototoxic drugs" or have a look at the list here:
http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/disorders/med_e ffects.htm

How can the Associated Press and its editors find a new news story out of something that has been publicized since the 1940s?

To what extent and in what form should the news media re-teach readers basic life lessons (eat a balanced diet, exercise, drink in moderation, don't listen to loud music, etc.)?

How should the press segregate news so that the average reader does not get lowest common denomiator news (e.g., things aimed at those that don't know better or are 5 years old or younger)?

Begin Quote from: "The History of Audiology" http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/aud_history.htm

The History of Audiology

The profession of audiology had its origins in the 1920s when audiometers were first designed for measuring hearing. Interest in this profession surged in the 1940s when soldiers returned from World War II with noise induced hearing loss due to near-by gunfire or to prolonged and unprotected exposure to machinery noise. Others had psychogenic (non-organic) hearing loss as a result of severe emotional and mental stress. The Veterans Administration took a lead role in providing hearing testing and rehabilitation through hearing aids, auditory training, and speechreading (lipreading) programs.

Since the 1940s and 1950s, the study of hearing, hearing loss, and audiologic rehabilitation has escalated and expanded. New tests of hearing have been developed including evaluations of functions of the outer ear, middle ear, cochlea, acoustic nerve, and related brain areas. Techniques using physiologic measurements that were in the research stages 20-30 years ago are now routine.

Modern technology and computerization have dramatically influenced hearing aids. Hearing aids have changed from "boxes" in shirt pockets and "cords" to the ear to highly sophisticated "completely-in-the-ear canal" aids. Virtually any kind of hearing loss can be improved by a hearing aid. Cochlear implants are increasingly common and successful. Through cochlear implantation, a destroyed or damaged cochlea can be by-passed and the acoustic nerve can be stimulated directly.

Today, audiologists and the practice of audiology have widespread visibility. Audiology has a presence in public schools, health care centers, private practices, nursing homes, community agencies, the military, hospitals. colleges and universities, hearing aid dispensing centers, hearing and speech centers. They test hearing and listening ability; they fit hearing aids and assistive listening devices; they provide training and rehabilitation programs for individuals with hearing and listening disorders; they participate on health care and educational teams tp plan and provide the most appropriate services.

hearing loss is caused by high frequency sound

Hearing loss is caused by a number of factors; yes, loud sound can do it, but high_volume != high_frequency. Where did you unearth this particular piece of mis-information??

According to the the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association there are at least seven causes of hearing loss in adults. PS, "high frequency sound" is not on the list.

Neither is "marriage", but that's a topic for another time... :-)

There are a few implants that they are doing. The first is in the ear (http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/treatment/coch lear_implant.htm). While this is normally not "computers", I have seen someone with an implant that has a wire coming out of their head, so that they can hear. It does have s speach processor, so it does have a processor. The second is the eyes, see here (http://www.news-medical.net/?id=8953).

They also have RFID chips that they can implant people with (http://www.greaterthings.com/News/Chip_Implants/) .

They have a heart that is mechanical, but the FDA rejected that.

As for why he chose that brand over other possibilities, I don't remember what he said on the air at the time (around January 2002). Here is his site's collection of articles regarding his implant.

I don't know if you will find these articles useful or not, but hopefully it will help you with your decision-making process.

Mac mice have never had an issue with left/right-handedness. (Also note that many creative types are right-brained, thus left-handed. This is important to some.)

Between the prevalence of hearing loss (~28 million Americans, to some degree) and the ambient noise present in most urban settings, who's going to notice that these new formats sound any better?

For most applications, CD-quality is good enough.