Want to tour Sydney Cochlear Headquarters and see how Cochlear Implants are made?

Have you ever been interested in how the Cochlear Implant devices are made? 

This is your chance to have a tour at Sydney Cochlear Headquarters on every Friday during the month of March in celebration of World Hearing Awareness Month.

If you are interested, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for further details. You can go here for a direct online booking link: Cochlear Headquarters Tour

Hearing aids go hi-tech: top innovations for 2019 Could the new wave of smart hearing gadgets improve your quality of life?

Feb 2019 Which?

New hearing aid technology may not be a topic you get particularly excited about, but as hearing loss can have a big impact on later life, these unassuming gadgets could have real potential to make a difference. And it seems developers are waking up to the potential for hearing to go more hi-tech. Jesal Vishnuram, from Action on Hearing Loss, said: ‘We are seeing a big shift in hearing aid technology, with manufacturers moving towards more mainstream tech features such as fitness tracking, streaming capabilities and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve speech audibility.’ These advances in technology promise to make hearing aids more comfortable, intuitive and effective. We’ve rounded up some of the exciting new and upcoming products for people with hearing loss which highlight how innovations could help to improve accessibility and keep you in tune with your surroundings. Guide to hearing loss – find out more about hearing loss and the options available New hearing aid tech focuses on better quality of sound When we asked Which? members the reasons for using their hearing aids infrequently, the main reasons were that they didn’t make enough difference to their hearing (41%) and that the background noise was too loud (32%). The new tech we’re seeing looks to improve these common hearing aid issues, focusing on a highly improved quality of sound, auto-adjustment to your preferences for different scenarios, and minimal buzzing, whistling or distortion in the background.

Read more: Hearing aids go hi-tech: top innovations for 2019 Could the new wave of smart hearing gadgets...

Hearing Loss and Hearing Solutions - A Guide

Here at last is our 2018 revision of the "Hearing Loss and Hearing Solutions - A Guide" that we have published in PDF format for the enjoyment of users. Our original version was reviewed very favourably and attracted a lot of viewers.

You can view/download it from this link:  Hearing Loss and Hearing Resources - A Guide (91 pages, 2.4 MB size). 

We welcome edits, corrections, updates, suggestions etc. Contact the authors via email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Here are some of the professional comments about our new 2018 version.

Overall Reactions to Second Edition:
Monica Bray (Cochlear): I’ve just discovered the wonderful Hearing Guide. It's an awesome resource.
Jade Parr (Advanced Bionics): What a great resource.
Roberta Marino (Fiona Stanley Hospital) with permission:
I really enjoyed reading the guide!  It's brilliant. So comprehensive, easy to read and relatable. I'm really impressed with the level of detail and can only imagine the hours you've spent researching new updates. The guide will positively impact so many people including professionals.  I can see it being so useful for instance, at our hospital when new medicos have a rotation in the Ear, Nose and Throat Department or when we have new Audiology students in our Department who are new to implant devices. Again - well done!  It's fantastic there's people like you who are so pro-active and care enough to put in the hundreds of hours required to develop such a useful and thorough guide.

Overall Reactions to First Edition:
Margaret Anderson: It's going to be a great resource for consumers and all sorts of people. Well done for tackling it!
Marie-Louise Hekel: Congratulations on this most thorough publication. You have done a splendid job. It would be a very valuable resource, not only for hearing impaired people, but professional audiologists in particular.
Roberta Marino: I think you’ve done a brilliant job. You really have a great understanding of how the different devices can be applied. If you don’t mind, when the product is finished, I’d like to pass it on to training ENT’s at the major teaching hospitals here in Perth and also the upcoming Audiology students.
Sarah McCullough (Advanced Bionics): Well done on all your hard work
Linda Ballam-Davies (Cochlear): It looks great and you've done a top job.

Exploring the connection between hearing loss and cognitive decline

Jan 2019 EurekAlert

Hearing loss affects tens of millions of Americans and its global prevalence is expected to grow as the world's population ages. A new study led by investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital adds to a growing body of evidence that hearing loss is associated with higher risk of cognitive decline. These findings suggest that hearing loss may help identify individuals at greater risk of cognitive decline and could provide insights for earlier intervention and prevention. "Dementia is a substantial public health challenge that continues to grow. There is no cure, and effective treatments to prevent progression or reverse the course of dementia are lacking," said lead author Sharon Curhan, MD, MSc, a physician and epidemiologist in the Channing Division for Network Medicine at the Brigham. "Our findings show that hearing loss is associated with new onset of subjective cognitive concerns which may be indicative of early stage changes in cognition. These findings may help identify individuals at greater risk of cognitive decline."

Curhan and colleagues conducted an eight-year longitudinal study among 10,107 men aged ≥62 years in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HFPS). They assessed subjective cognitive function (SCF) scores based on responses to a six-item questionnaire administered in 2008, 2012 and 2016. SCF decline was defined as a new report of at least one SCF concern during follow-up.

The team found that hearing loss was associated with higher risk of subjective cognitive decline. Compared with men with no hearing loss, the relative risk of cognitive decline was 30 percent higher among men with mild hearing loss, 42 percent higher among men with moderate hearing loss, and 54 percent higher among men with severe hearing loss but who did not use hearing aids.

Researchers were interested to see if hearing aids might modify risk. Although they found that among men with severe hearing loss who used hearing aids, the risk of cognitive decline was somewhat less (37 percent higher), it was not statistically significantly different from the risk among those who did not use hearing aids. The authors note that this may have been due to limited power or could suggest that if a difference truly exists, the magnitude of the effect may be modest.

The authors also note that the study was limited to predominantly older white male health professionals. This allowed for greater control of variability but further studies in additional populations would be helpful. In addition, the study relies on self-reported hearing loss and subjective measures of cognitive function. In the future, the team plans to investigate the relationships between self-reported hearing loss, change in audiometric hearing thresholds, and changes in cognition in women using several different assessment measures. "Whether there is a temporal association between hearing loss and cognitive decline and whether this relation is causal remains unclear," said Curhan. "We plan to conduct further longitudinal studies of the relation of hearing loss and cognition in women and in younger populations, which will be informative."