>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made with someone named George.

George is young and George has moderate hearing loss and he's about to help millions of children better understand what it's like to live with and thrive with the condition.

George is a fictional character and he is a pig.

To be specific, if you're familiar with the children's show Peppa Pig, George is Peppa's younger brother.

The Hearing Loss Association of America has recently partnered with Hasbro to raise awareness of hearing health and to help reduce the stigma tied to hearing loss.

Starting in May, HLAA and Hasbro will create new content featuring George, which will be available across a range of platforms.

It's designed to educate people of all ages about hearing loss and to empower people, especially children, who navigate the condition.

HLAA executive Director, Barbara Kelley has said that hearing loss, quote, has no age limits and it does not discriminate.

George's experience is a chance to remind people that hearing health matters at every age, while exploring it from the unique perspective of a child and celebrating curiosity and acceptance along the way.

End quote.

More than 50 million Americans live with hearing loss, and according to the Hearing Loss Association of America, there are even more people at risk of developing it.

It can happen over time, or it can happen.

Suddenly, the association says hearing loss is a growing public health crisis.

While it may often be misunderstood as a singular condition, hearing loss is complex and is a significant part of overall health that affects quality of life.

The Hearing Loss Association of America Rochester chapter invites you to participate in an upcoming event where you can learn more about all of this, and it has invited a special guest who is joining us this hour.

I'd like to welcome first in studio.

Peter Fackler is a board member of the Hearing Loss Association of America and the New York State Association of HLAA past chair of HLAA and the New York State Association of La HLAA, and a longtime activist and a member with the Rochester chapter.

Welcome.

Thank you for being with us.

>> Thank you, Evan.

>> And welcome on the line with us to Ira Rubenstein chief digital and marketing officer for PBS, who is a volunteer with the Hearing Loss Association of America.

IRA, welcome to the program.

>> Thank you very much.

>> And I know I wanted to make it clear this conversation really with IRA is about his role as a volunteer with HLAA and a person who is deaf with cochlear implants.

I how are how are you doing these days?

>> well, in general, I'm doing pretty good.

I am the current board chair of the Hearing Loss Association of America, and thank you for that disclaimer.

try to separate my professional role from my volunteer role.

but I'm excited to have this conversation about the hearing loss association and about hearing loss in general.

And to really highlight the the great work that the Rochester chapter does.

with the, with their chapter.

>> And let me welcome Barbara Kelly, executive director of the hearing loss Association of America.

Barbara, thank you for being with us this hour.

>> Thank you.

Evan, it's nice to be with you again.

>> And so we have IRA coming next week, Tuesday the seventh.

That's eight days from now, an event at noon at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church on Westminster Road, an event that is free and open to the public.

Peter, what do you want people to know about this?

>> we we convene around 1130.

Come earlier if you'd like to schmooze with, with some of our members and attendees.

And IRA will begin speaking around noon and sharing information from national Hearing Loss Association.

>> Very good.

And briefly, Peter, we'll talk more about this later this hour.

But we were talking before the program began about how valuable this can be to just be aware of HLAA to to get involved, to reach out for anybody with hearing loss of any kind here.

how valuable has it been in your life?

And what do you want people to understand?

>> Well, it's life changing.

Evan, the name of your program is Connections.

And as I thought about driving over here today, what Hearing loss Association is about and the local efforts like Rochester chapter is about Connections.

It's knowing other people with hearing loss, learning from them, working with them to make the world a better place for people with hearing loss.

>> And for you.

Before this program began, you were telling me not just the fact that you have cochlear implants, but some of the the scientific aspects of this that kind of blow my mind at how what we are able to do.

And can you just describe a little bit about how they work and.

>> Evan's referencing a conversation we had about the cochlear implants, which I have two here on my head.

If I remove those, I am totally deaf.

So what they do is there are this is very brief.

there are microphones in these instruments and the microphones catch the words that are said in my environment, in the analog world, if you say the word cat is what's picked up with these microphones, then the software in these instruments change the analog sound to digital to ones and twos computer speak.

So what is into my auditory nerve and my brain is the ones in the zeros, which neurologically you learn to translate to understand what that means.

So it's.

amazing to me.

It's miraculous.

>> How long have you had them?

>> 2004 and 2009 to separate operations to do the work.

If I were not, if I did not have this technology and the Bluetooth and other things, and if I didn't have my friends at hearing Loss Association of America, Rochester Chapter, I wouldn't be here.

In fact, I think I would have passed this vale of tears, because what we know about hearing loss is the sense of isolation, the being alone, even when you're with others, can be overwhelming.

And what we try to do in hearing loss association is to change that, to really make the world a better place for people with hearing loss.

>> So one more question for Peter before we turn to our guests who are joining us remotely.

And again, information about the local chapter, the upcoming event with IRA and more is at hearing loss.

rochester.org.

You can learn more there.

What you are describing as being life changing.

You called it miraculous.

And this is several decades of your life now that has been affected in this way.

And yet the research shows us that there are some people, let's say mostly men, but not always men who don't want to to talk about this, don't want to discuss this, don't want to admit that they may be going in a direction of needing the kind of help that you eventually have that has changed your life.

What would you say to people who are hesitant to kind of confront the reality of what is changing in their own hearing?

>> That's a tough one.

And I think it's not only reluctance or denial.

I think some people speaks to where I was.

I just kept on trucking.

I worked, worked, worked.

My hearing loss was an inconvenience, but I didn't see it as really much about who I was until I hit a wall and I couldn't work anymore.

So I think people see their hearing loss in a lot of different ways.

And what I would say to people who have untreated hearing loss, they're not using hearing aids.

and who maybe really haven't thought about how could they can navigate our world better?

Hearing loss association, Rochester chapter has so much to offer.

We're all volunteer, no paid staff.

This is all people with hearing loss working together in different kinds of ways, outreach and then with each other.

Just trying to hack our way through this world and do it in a better and better way.

>> Remarkable.

Again, hearing loss.

rochester.org.

We have to take our only break now.

And when we come back, we're going to welcome back in IRA and Barbara.

We'll continue this conversation.

Take some of your feedback as well as we go throughout this hour talking about what the Hearing Loss Association of America is doing and the local chapter as well on Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Tuesday on the next Connections.

What is surveillance pricing?

You heard about that debate recently in our community, there have been debates in grocery stores and places across the country about surveillance pricing.

We'll explain and talk about what legislators think they should do about it.

Then in our second hour, a conversation with survivors of human trafficking, how art can help heal.

That's Tuesday on Connections.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola, center, proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson.

Believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary cariola.org and concerts at point of the Bluff Vineyards, presenting Los Lobos and Los lonely boys in the Brotherhood Tour.

Sunday, June 21st.

Gates open at two.

Tickets at concerts at p o.com.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

I already have a few emails from listeners about hearing loss and their experiences.

We will get to those coming up here.

The email address.

As always, Connections at wxxi.org.

If you want to send us a note there or you can join the chat if you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube channel there.

Barbara Kelley, executive director of the Hearing Loss Association of America.

I read that in the introduction, some of what you had to say about the character of George in Peppa Pig and the idea that, you know, we should be talking about this at all level, that we should be comfortable understanding that hearing loss is not just for one sector of age and part of life.

Tell me a little bit more about that and what you think the impact can be with that.

>> Well, thank you Evan.

You know, hearing loss is not discriminate between ages.

ethnic cultural backgrounds.

There are 58 million people in the United States with hearing loss.

And this is any degree of hearing loss.

And I think what we want to show people is, you know, we're the national organization and the Rochester chapter is one of our chapters across the country.

People on the ground who are providing that community of support, as well as solid, unbiased information.

And often advocacy.

And we want to show people that there is something you can do about your hearing loss.

You know, to take that first step, people might not yet use a hearing aid, but there are assistive devices.

And if you do use a hearing aid, a lot of people don't know that you can get cell phones that are hearing aid compatible.

So the beauty of all the volunteers at the Rochester chapter is you can go learn things, learn how to live well with your hearing loss, and stay connected to the people that you love and the things you want to do.

And I think the great thing about George Pig and the Peppa Pig animated series is that it kind of shows that that that hearing loss can happen to anyone.

And there's something you can do about it.

And I think especially for children, it just normalizes it.

You know, we have walk for hearing across the country.

And this is where we see kids who wear hearing aids and cochlear implants like IRA and Pete come out for the first time and they meet another child with a hearing loss.

And it's really empowering for them and their families who get to meet other parents.

So we're really excited about Peppa Pig.

And we're, you know, we're so excited about the work that the Rochester chapter does in your community.

>> You know, Barbara, I'm thinking of a family member years ago who definitely waited years before sort of pursuing any kind of help with hearing loss.

And I'm contrasting a couple of ideas that I'd like you to talk about.

Number one, you know, you heard Peter Fackler talk about how isolating hearing loss can be for an individual.

And I can certainly understand that.

And then I think about my family member who felt a sense of embarrassment and whatever isolation, hearing loss was causing, it was not outweighed, at least for a number of years, by the embarrassment of even talking about it.

And it and it it seemed to me at the time that if we didn't eliminate whatever perceived stigma there was, there were going to be people suffering in silence with this.

Do you think the stigma is going away?

>> I do think it's going away.

You know, people used to really associate hearing loss with aging, because we do know it is, you know, with the older you get, you know, hearing loss is, is greater in those numbers.

But people of all ages have hearing loss.

And I think we are minimizing, minimizing the stigma.

first of all, over the counter hearing aids came out.

The Apple AirPods, which made a big splash on the market, that this is something you can do if you have a mild to moderate hearing loss.

And we see people putting things in their ears all the time.

So hopefully with more education, more technology the stigma is, is being reduced.

And we know that if we can drive people to hearing care sooner rather than later, it's better, it's better for your brain, it's better for keeping those Connections because, you know, the embarrassment I think lies in when you are interacting with people and face it, our relationships are based on talking to people, hearing sound.

And if you go out and you mishear something or you have to bluff your way through a conversation, that could be embarrassing, and then what do you do?

You withdraw.

It's just easier to stay home and not go out and have those interactions.

And that's what I love about our local chapters.

It's a place where it's okay not to hear well.

And boy, when you talk to your peers, you can learn so much about technology, about coping skills and really how to stay in the work world or stay active in your retirement life.

>> Well, Ira Rubenstein is a big deal for us because he's the chief digital and marketing officer for PBS, and we're very proud of the work that Aya and the team do.

Of course, with your public broadcasting and member supported public broadcasting.

PBS so important in the fabric of this community.

But really, I was on this program today sharing his story and so much of what I read, IRA indicates that people are going to be more willing to pursue help and to talk about this.

If they hear other people's stories.

And I wonder if you could share some of your own with us.

>> Yeah, sure.

it's you know, that's, that is actually also part of the HLAA and going to chapter meetings or even going to our, our national convention which is coming in June in Louisville, Kentucky.

I'll do a little plug there.

because it's when you're among people who have basically walked in your shoes that you just feel more empowered and you just feel like finally there are people who can understand the journey you've been on.

And, my wife says this after my very first convention that she's never seen me smile more than coming up from that first day.

It was because I was among, you know, people who knew her.

I was coming from.

This happens at our chapter meetings.

We bring captioning to the chapter meeting real time captioning.

We'll use telecoil, which is technology to bring the sound directly into your implants or your hearing aids.

and those are all ways to get people to, you know, feel like they can participate easier.

My own personal journey of my hearing loss is I started wearing hearing aids in the, probably in the, in the 90s and and then I lost hearing in my right ear and around 2011.

And I lost hearing in my left ear about, I think it's now we're looking at about two years ago and I tried all sorts of different devices.

There are things like what's called Cros hearing aids for single sided deafness.

That's what when you lost hearing in one side of your head, it's called and that basically takes the sound from one ear and puts it all into the other ear.

it pretty much is overwhelming for people.

I fortunately stumbled across a single sided deafness cochlear implant trial with the University of North Carolina and the FDA.

And that was a participant in that trial.

They were trying to determine if there was benefits, more benefits from having an implant than using Cros, hearing aids.

And the outcome was.

Yes.

And so now it is an FDA approved covered by insurance.

procedure to get single sided deafness and implants.

you know, for me personally, in the beginning when I was wearing my hearing aids, I was absolutely, very conscious about it.

I was working in Hollywood at the time.

and you can imagine what it's like in Hollywood.

and what I notice right away is even back then, no one looks at your ears.

And so what I would tell to your earlier question was someone's thinking about it.

no one looks at your ears.

I wore hearing aids for about probably six months before my young children even knew I had them on my head, and they were always climbing around me.

but even with my implants that I wear now and mine are different than Pete's minor, what's called an over the ear I'm going to show on the mirror.

So it's a, it's a little over the air.

It's a little magnet there.

And I have it on both sides.

And people don't see it.

They just don't, they really don't look at your ears.

and I would just, you know, I feel very grateful for the technology.

when you have hearing loss, it is so easy just to just to kind of fade into the background as Barbara was talking about and people who are struggling, it's just easier not to go out, not to be caught and embarrassed.

And I would just encourage anyone who's even thinking about it, go to a chapter meeting.

We have other chapters, of course, across the country you can find a hearing loss org.

and to me, and this might be funny coming from the chief digital Officer, PBS.

Yes, digital brings communities.

Yes.

You can go to forums and Facebook groups and other things, but there's a difference when you're in face to face with people.

There's a difference when you're actually talking to someone in real time and they can show you and let you hold things and play with things and understand the powerful tools that are out there now that allow you to fully participate in life.

And that's what I love about the Hearing Loss Association of America.

I love that we are the voice of the consumer.

I love that we are out there educating and advocating and supporting people with hearing loss.

And I wish more people knew about us.

And I appreciate opportunities like this, but this is the way we're going to be able to help people who are suffering in silence.

And I want them to know that they don't have to do that anymore.

>> IRA, was there an adjustment period with the cochlear implants that took some time for you?

>> oh, gosh.

Yes.

so you hear all the stories.

the first my first implant.

Right away, things sound like Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse.

you have to basically retrain your brain.

So you're doing a lot of listening to Ted talks.

and other, what's called post therapy or treatment rehab.

And it's like any other rehab, like when, if you had knee surgery, the more you do, the faster you respond.

And so within first six months, I was hearing quite well.

And then on my second implant from activation day, I was hearing fine, but it did take a lot of time.

I'm a trained percussionist.

back from my youth and I listened to a lot of music as I used to say, from punk to classical.

And I had to relisten to a lot of this music to get my brain to understand it.

But I fully enjoy music now.

That's a lot of questions people get.

Can you still enjoy music?

Absolutely.

I go to lots of lots of concerts.

I was just that one this last week.

and I totally understand what's going on.

I can hear the melody, I can hear the pitch.

and it's, you know, it's life changing.

>> I'm thinking about the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

I mean, if you're in the audience there with that many instruments and that much instrumentation, is there any competing sound or is it is it, I mean, for lack of better term, is it what you remembered typically before your cochlear implants?

>> Oh, no, it sounds to me it sounds just like what I remember playing in an orchestra for, you know, through college.

it's, it's, you can distinguish between the different instruments very easily.

And I mean, just like your voice is a different pitch than Pete and Barbara.

you know, I, I met both Pete and Barbara before I lost hearing in my right ear.

And they sound just like they, you know, sound.

>> Well, I should ask all I should ask all of you about this next question because, you know, at risk of the audience thinking that I'm, I'm only going to be some sort of anti A.I.

person.

I'm, I'm open to all the good that A.I.

could do.

And I hope that it only does good.

I'm very optimistic in the field of medicine from everything I read and I wonder about hearing loss.

IRA, is there anything that strikes your interest with A.I.

in the future with hearing loss?

>> So what is really interesting that's going on right now, and I'm sure Barbara's much better expert speaking to this, but the the hearing aid companies are coming out with A.I.

enablement in these devices where they are using neural network processing power to help people hearing noise.

So when there's a lot of background noise, it actually masks the sounds that your brain needs to hear to assemble the words and understand what's going on and what the A.I.

is now trying to do is focus to block that background noise so that the microphones pick up the person who's speaking in front of you.

And I'm very optimistic about about that sort of work.

>> Barbara, do you want to add to that?

>> Oh, sure.

Iris.

Wright at our research symposium this year at our convention, the topic is going to be A.I.

and Hearing Technology, and our research symposium is funded by the NIH, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Also, A.I.

in real time captioning.

I mean, we're able to carry our devices in the palm of our hands and turn on an app that will translate speech to text on Zoom calls and team calls.

I mean, of course, real time captioning, live captioning right now is the gold standard, but A.I.

is pretty good.

And as that improves, it might be close to a gold standard.

So we're very excited about both the technology for hearing devices as well as other applications.

>> Peter Fackler, I don't know how you feel about A.I.

in general.

Is this an area of optimism for you?

>> Now?

I'm getting double.

>> Oh, you're oh, now you're getting competing because.

So Peter is using teams to hear the guests.

And I think that's competing with the in studio sound.

So.

Should we.

>> Well it's it's it's like an echo.

>> Okay.

So you're hearing an echo.

>> Yes.

Even my own voice is like, like repeating.

>> All right.

Our team is gonna see if we can address that with you.

We appreciate that.

This is.

We're working through the technology here.

and part of the issue is because Peter Fackler, a board member for HLAA Rochester, uses cochlear implants.

That is not an option to use headphones.

So we have a different technological solution.

Now there's a little bit of competition.

It happens.

IRA, how often does this happen with you when you think you've got, you know, sort of a hearing solution figured out and there's some competition?

>> Oh my gosh, too often than not I will tell you at the Hearing Loss Association, our convention and chapter meetings, we have a rule.

Everyone hears or we all stop.

And I know you can't do that on a radio show, but it just reflects how important we feel about inclusion for everyone.

And so even our board meetings, we have what we call tech time, where we're setting up everyone's devices because there's different manufacturers and people have different types of hearing loss and need different assistive devices just to get, you know, everything working.

But I do a lot of talks.

I do a lot of stage talks.

and it's, I always come with a big bag of tools so I can kind of adapt to whatever the situation might be of of the room I'm in.

But it is, it is personally frustrating.

when you're in that situation and you can't really hear.

>> We're going to work on that for Peter and I apologize.

and Peter is one of the gentlest, most kind human beings you'll ever meet there.

but let me also just ask you, IRA, separately, just something that came to mind when you mentioned earlier closed caption and subtitles.

You know, one of the modern trends in social media, when people post videos, they are often now just choosing to put subtitles or captions on.

They're just by choice, almost stylistically.

I wonder if you've seen much of that and if you think that if that's a welcome development.

>> Oh, absolutely.

So the interesting thing wearing my digital hat it's a, you're younger gen Z millennial they watch a lot of videos on their phones with the sound off.

And so they're reading the captions and so they actually, I believe it's like 70% or something.

with the captions.

And then that's translated actually to the TV world where on streaming or on your broadcast TV, more than half the people are now watching content with captions, regardless of their own hearing.

hearing loss and what I've been involved with, with the HLAA recently is working to get more open caption in movie theaters right now.

Movie theaters have some captioning devices, either their glasses or their, these little kind of cup holder things that sometimes work, sometimes don't but we were successful in Virginia.

to add that as a bill.

So there will be required open caption screenings for movies.

And I think wearing my old movie marketing hat, I actually think it's going to be a good way to bring younger generation actually back to the theaters.

>> Barbara Kelley what do you make of that, that trend?

>> I totally agree.

We know that that's how young people get their news is they, they read the captions on their phones while they're doing other things.

I mean captions have become widespread use.

And as people kind of age into their hearing loss as they get a little bit older, it's hard to understand that dialog on TV.

So the captions are often running in, in TV homes across the country, no matter your level of hearing loss, some of the work we do at the national level is on public policy.

Currently, we're looking for a co-sponsor for the communications and Video Technology Act.

This is the 2.0 version of several years ago for the 21st century.

telecommunications and Video Accessibility Act, which required video TV to be captioned.

While back then, things like YouTube were just channels that people put pictures of their dogs on.

So nobody dreamed that YouTube would be YouTube TV.

So we need the requirements for captioning to be across all streaming.

totally accessible.

And this piece of legislation just doesn't cover hearing loss.

It covers vision loss and other disabilities so that the, the modern ways that we get our entertainment and get our news is accessible to all people with disabilities.

So that's one of the pieces of legislation that we're working on.

Irene Aaron mentioned that are several states that are working on the open caption movie accessibility.

>> do you have momentum for the congressional legislation?

>> We did have more momentum.

And right now we're trying to find a co-sponsor of the bill.

The bill is not controversial.

It's bipartisan.

Typically, it would pass very quickly through Congress.

But right now it's just kind of taking a back burner, I think, to other issues.

But that doesn't mean that we don't stop working on it.

I mean, every week we meet in our coalition on it.

We have meetings on the Hill, and the thing that we do is we make sure that Congress is well educated on hearing loss and the incidence of hearing loss, and, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions about hearing loss.

People think that you put a hearing aid in your ear and your hearing is corrected.

Well, that's not true.

It's not like putting on a pair of glasses, which most of the time will correct your vision.

You put in a hearing aid and there's just no such thing really as a small hearing loss.

And no hearing loss is alike for some people.

They put in hearing aids and everything is fine, but for other people they might need the help of assistive listening device.

So they might need some captioning on TV, or they might do better in certain situations, or they might have to fiddle with an app on their phone to get you know, direct Bluetooth streaming.

So we educate lawmakers constantly about hearing loss and what it means to the person living with hearing loss.

And we never stop fighting for Medicare expansion to cover hearing aids and services for people over 65.

>> That's, that's a real.

I'll just echo what Barbara is saying.

My hearing isn't perfect.

my what they call your word score when they make you repeat words, it's about 85%, but just like your vision and you have blind spots, your brain fills in the gaps.

And same thing happens with hearing.

Your brain is filling in the gaps of the context of the sentence, who you're speaking with.

That's why we're always looking for clues when those of us with hearing loss, we're reading lips a little bit.

We're trying to be able to see who is speaking.

So you can kind of put context to what they're saying and what happens.

And I'm not an audiologist.

I only pretend to be one.

it'd be good to have an audiologist on this call, but your hearing loss, the different sounds like the T, those are different ranges of the hearing spectrum.

So if you're missing the high ends, you're missing some of these certain consonants.

And I get confused which ones they are.

But then your brain can fill it in.

And so that's why captioning is help.

That's why all these things help are all these clues for people with hearing loss.

So yeah, it takes us a little bit more.

But as Barbara says, it's still not it's not like eyesight where everything is pitch and perfect.

But but all that adds up so that we can participate.

And again, every person's hearing loss is different and every person's cochlear implant journey is different.

And I just, I just try to stress that as much as possible because as people talk to people that's important to understand.

>> Oh, I'm going to stay here.

>> We're talking.

>> Okay, all my.

>> Ira Rubenstein and I don't know if I'm hearing Peter Fackler.

So Peter, we're trying to position Peter so he can hear all of us.

I like IRA's point earlier, you know, if one can't hear, then, you know, then the program stops and we're doing our best there.

You're hearing Ira Rubenstein chief digital and marketing officer for PBS, who is a volunteer with the Hearing Loss Association of America.

IRA, is coming to this month's HLAA Rochester meeting next Tuesday.

That's eight days from now.

Tuesday the seventh for a noon event at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church that is free and open to the public, and they would love to see you there.

Peter Fackler is with us.

He is part of the Hlaa Rochester chapter and Barbara Kelley, the executive director of the HLAA nationally is on the line with us now here.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read some emails from listeners with IRA's.

Note that we don't have an audiologist in the studio, so we're not going to try to give perfect medical advice, but in general, ideas on how people can help themselves.

I'll start with Charlie.

Charlie says, Evan, I have played loud electronic music for over 50 years and I have pretty good tinnitus.

Please ask your guests what my next step should be.

so Barbara Kelley someone who's dealing with tinnitus, 50 years of music.

where would you send him?

>> Well, we know first of all, that music, loud music does add to hearing loss and tinnitus.

Noise induced hearing loss is 100% preventable and 100% irreversible.

So, Charlie, I would go to an audiologist or hearing aid specialist and have a baseline audiogram to first of all, see if there's any hearing loss that's associated with the tinnitus.

And then your audiologist could advise you on what to do with the tinnitus.

Tinnitus is tricky sometimes hearing aids will mask the tinnitus sound.

but tinnitus again is a is a tricky one.

>> Charlie, good luck to you.

Let me now get Lou here, who writes from Stuart, Florida.

He says I suffer fairly severe hearing loss due to primarily service in Vietnam.

Some 50 plus years ago.

What concerns me today is young people's disregard for their hearing health.

They should understand hearing aids are not a substitute for healthy, functioning ears.

That is from Lou.

I'm going to ask all of our guests about this.

And and again, I mean, I I'll start with IRA because IRA mentioned that your word score, you know, you're like an 85, that your life has been changed in the same way that Peter's life has been changed with cochlear implants.

but what Lou seems to be saying is youth is wasted on the young that you think that you'll never have a problem, that you can, that you don't have to protect yourself.

And Lou is urging people, especially young people, to consider the impact on their hearing with their daily activities.

Is that fair?

IRA?

>> yeah, that's a very fair.

Well, first, thank you for your question.

And Barbara can correct me, but I believe the number one disability for our veterans is hearing loss.

we have a very active virtual veterans hearing loss chapter that one meets online.

And that is with our veterans from across the country.

and we're very proud of that.

That group.

but absolutely what I'm seeing with youth in the concerts I go to they are now understanding that you have to protect your ears.

We had a speaker at our convention who was the forefront of those in ear monitors for rock musicians.

And he talked about years ago he'd have to fight these musicians to get them, but now they all understand that they have to protect, protect their hearing because there's some very famous musicians now who are having, you know, challenges years later.

And what you're seeing at these concerts are people passing out whether they're even noise plugs, but there's now very specialized, earplugs, you can get that dampen the sound, but don't completely mask it.

So what it does is it takes the decibel level down to something that's not going to damage your hearing, but you can clearly hear the music and that advancement has changed the game for people who go to a lot of concerts because they feel like they can still enjoy it without just, you know, totally blocking the sound.

>> Barbara Kelley anything you want to add to lose email?

>> Yes.

I made the point, you know, noise induced hearing loss is loss is completely preventable and completely irreversible.

I was very I mean, I'm so motivated.

A couple weeks ago, I went to somebody's 50th birthday party and one of the couples there had their little newborn baby there, and the baby was wearing ear protection headphones.

And I'm seeing more and more of this at wedding receptions.

And if if parents don't think that that baby's hearing can't be damaged, I mean, it can.

And these parents are so smart.

I went on Amazon and you can buy these headphones for babies and they're terrific.

And I've heard, you know, back in the old days, parents would say, oh, the baby will get used to it.

You got to acclimate them to sound.

No, that noise is damaging that baby's hearing.

So I was really inspired just as recently as a couple of weeks ago, to see one of the moms had those headphones on her baby.

>> and I think we've got Peter Fackler back with us.

Peter, anything you want to add to Luke's email about the importance of maybe not taking for granted hearing and not damaging it unnecessarily?

>> Well, or natural hearing is a precious gift.

And what IRA and Barbara are saying is that he's absolutely right.

people need to do all they can to protect their hearing.

and starting with their children when they're infants.

>> Let me read an email from Rick who says, Evan at age 65, I had my first audiology test and learned that I had hearing loss.

I was concerned because my father was basically deaf without his hearing aids, and I saw how his hearing loss negatively affected his life, isolating him and making his dementia advance even more quickly.

The audiologist told me that my loss was primarily in my left ear, and that there were certain sounds and tones I simply could not hear.

When I got my first set of hearing aids, I was astounded at the difference.

Most telling.

One day, sitting at the dining room table with my wife, I commented how the birds were so loud on that day and she said, they're always that loud.

I took out my hearing aids and just like that, no sound of the birds chirping.

I put them back in and voila, the birds were chirping again.

When it comes to hearing loss, we literally don't know what we are missing unless we get hearing aids, so I cannot recommend strongly enough that as people age, they get their hearing checked.

I did not realize how much hearing loss I suffered because it happened incrementally over the years.

There is only an upside to getting hearing aids.

From my perspective.

That is from Rick Barbara Kelley looking at data.

On average, it takes it takes people seven years to seek treatment for hearing loss from the time they.

Even from the time they feel they might be affected.

So I suspect you want to echo Rick's points there in that email.

Go ahead.

Barbara.

>> I say sign Rick up.

He said it so beautifully.

perfect.

No hearing loss is insidious.

It just creeps in and people tend to manage and deal with it.

And, you know I wish when we went to our primary care physicians for our physicals, you know, they asked us about everything else.

Are we sleeping?

Are we eating?

Are we depressed?

Why don't they say, do you have trouble hearing on the phone?

Are you turning your TV up loud?

And I tell people, if your spouse or partner is telling you that, that you you're not hearing everything.

Believe it.

Really believe that.

And just taking that first step sooner rather than later.

And I think Rick just said it, you know, there is something you can do about your hearing loss and don't delay because, you know, IRA was talking about people.

Don't look at your ears.

Don't be embarrassed about what's in your ears.

I think it's it's worse if you're saying the wrong thing, answering inappropriately to a question that wasn't asked.

I mean, people start with older people.

Maybe equating that with maybe their their thinking isn't right on the mark when it could just be they're not hearing.

So better to appear with a device in your ears, hearing things correctly or telling people, please repeat.

I have a hearing loss.

I need to understand that question again and doing a little bit of self-advocacy, because the world doesn't know what to do with us.

You know, we have to tell them, please speak slower.

Clearer.

Please face me when you talk to me.

something like that.

So people have to do a little bit on their own as well.

>> Thank you.

Rick Gregory sends three questions and I think that they're going to be directed to the different panel members.

The first one I'll send over to Barbara Kelley from the Hearing Loss Association of America.

Gregory wants to know.

He says HLAA is for hearing people who then lost their hearing, not for those deaf from birth.

He wants a clarification.

Barbara.

>> Oh, that's a good question.

Well, I like to say we're we're for everyone.

You know, we want to give the best information, all the information, and then you pick and choose what you do with it.

many people who were born deaf in the recent, you know, past 20 years or so, when babies are born deaf, they are immediately fitted with hearing aids to get sound, to get those auditory nerves going and get the baby's language or they get cochlear implants and a lot of babies being born deaf has been mitigated by the German measles vaccine because rubella with pregnant mothers was often the cause of babies being born deaf.

But some people who are born deaf or in the deaf community use sign language to communicate.

And I mean, that's terrific.

But a lot of people who might have lost their hearing later in life never learned sign language.

Their families didn't learn sign language, and they, you know, unless you're immersed in the language, it's sometimes difficult for some people to keep that language up.

So I wouldn't say that we're not for a certain population of people.

but we just want to educate people on what can be done and the technology.

And if you are someone who's lost your hearing and you want to use technology and use residual hearing to stay in the hearing world, you know, we can provide some good information and support.

>> A couple other questions from Greg about cochlear implants.

So I'll start with this one with Peter Fackler.

He says the he wants a little explanation.

He says the cochlear implant description.

So after being digitized, the sound doesn't get converted back to sound that is louder or frequency shifted.

It's more like audio Braille and that the person does not hear the sound, but instead interprets the converted digital data directly.

He just wants Peter a little more explanation on what you're actually hearing and taking in.

>> the as I mentioned, when you get a cochlear implant, particularly your first one, you can expect to go through really rehab where you're teaching your brain what the consonants and the diphthongs and the vowels sound like.

I personally went through a really rigorous rigorous program of that because what the information that your brain is getting is ones and zeros transmitted by via your auditory nerve.

And it's it's that different input that the brain needs to adapt to and to understand that when someone has said the word cat that in computer speak, that cat is the, it's the same word.

I don't know if that helps or not.

You want to add to that?

>> Yeah.

IRA, you want to go ahead.

>> Oh my gosh.

yeah.

So again, my, my pretending to be an audiologist and an ENT.

So in these cochlear implants, they are actually inserting an electrode all the way into your cochlea.

And on those, on the, on that long string are different electrodes.

And as the sounds coming in the processor and the programming are determining which electrodes to fire, the deeper into your cochlea, the lower the sound is.

Where it's normally picked up the outer parts, where the higher range is.

And that's why a lot of people have higher frequency loss.

First, because your the hairs in the lab are damaged and they don't regrow.

So what you're retraining your brain to do is actually take those signals that are coming from the electrodes in your cochlea and your auditory nerve then is deciphering it to translate it to the sounds that you should be hearing.

I think that's the best way to describe it.

It's amazing, I'm quite sure.

Good job.

My audiologist right now is going to be yelling at me.

doctor Dillard, she's probably going, IRA, you messed that up so badly.

>> No, I think that I appreciate that.

I'm sure Greg does too.

And then briefly, Barbara.

Patrick wanted to know how do you feel about the crazy new mufflers with the backfiring?

So many loud sounds in society, Barbara, anything you want to.

Any rant you want to give us about that?

>> Barbara sure.

I could go on about that.

Well it depends on the decibel, you know, even if it's a one time boom, it can cause hearing damage.

And this is what happens on the battlefields with our military and with noise induced hearing loss.

Yes.

We live in a in a very noisy society.

there's no doubt about that.

And just more education is needed.

that, that noise is really a hazard.

Well, to hearing health and I think we have to know that hearing health is part of overall health and wellness.

It's just as important as our blood pressure, our, our cholesterol levels.

It's really important to take care of it from an early age.

>> Well, I will say this as we get ready to close, I am grateful for our guests and the time they've given to us.

If you join late Ira Rubenstein, Who's chief digital and marketing officer for PBS and talking about his own experience with hearing loss and cochlear implants, he is coming to Rochester for the local chapters, meeting the local chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America.

That's eight days from now.

Tuesday the seventh for a noon event at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church in Rochester.

That is a free event open to the public.

They would love to see you there.

Just judging by the emails we got today, there is a tremendous amount of interest in this subject, either with yourself or someone you love.

So IRA will be here next week for that, and I want to thank our guests for making the time.

Ira Rubenstein thank you for telling your story, sir.

Thank you for the great work at PBS as well.

By the way, we're all family and we appreciate you and we'll see you in Rochester next week.

>> For having us.

And thank you for having this very important conversation about hearing loss.

And just to remind your listeners, you're not alone.

There are people out there.

You can find out more.

Hearing loss.

Org and find that support that you need.

>> Peter Fackler is not only a board member for HLAA, but he's been working with the local chapter.

You can learn more at Hearing loss rochester.org.

Peter, thank you for making time for us.

>> Glad to be here.

Evan.

Thanks very much.

>> And Barbara Kelley Executive director of the Hearing Loss Association of America.

Barbara, thank you as always.

Thanks for being with us.

>> Thank you Evan.

It was a pleasure.

Hearing loss.org.

There's something you can do about your hearing loss.

Don't hesitate.

>> Hearing loss.org and hearing loss rochester.org on the website.

Great stuff from a wonderful panel this hour from all of us at Connections.

Thanks for being with us.

We are back with you tomorrow on member supported public media.

>> This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without expressed written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the Connections link at wxxinews.org.