PSA Charitable Foundation holds national hearing screening and loans out hearing aids for free

Artist Easton Dong is on site to endorse the event

Students with hearing loss performs piano with amazing musicality

Otolaryngologist: The risk of Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss for the three hypers patients is 2-5 times.

 

 

The pioneering Hearing Aid Bank for hearing care comes to QSquare

PSA Charitable Foundation held the Hearing, Sublimation of Love Carnival for 33 World Hearing Day at QSquare. The Foundation collaborates with Taipei City West District Assistive Technology Center to establish the Hearing Aid Bank. The hearing devices are on loan for free for 15 days or up to a month for everyone whose household registration is in Taipei City and has hearing impairment certification or whose hearing loss is server enough to affect daily communication. Registration for the free loan devices is open on site. Those who were not present at the event today are welcome to contact 02-2523-7902 with extension 16 to register with Taipei City West District Assistive Technology Center.

PSA Charitable Foundation stated that the aims of the Hearing Aid Bank are providing access to the hearing aids for those in need, understanding the effectiveness of hearing aids for the persons with hearing loss, finding the most suitable ways to utilize the devices through the assistance of audiologists, and allowing people with hearing loss to communicate without barriers. The Foundation also encourages those who rejected the idea of wearing hearing aids due to unpleasant experience in the past to try again. The Foundation urges everyone to take the initiative to care for their family members and friends with hearing problems. There was a hearing test station on site at the event, where audiologists conducted hearing screening for the general public. Anyone found with hearing abnormality would be referred to the otolaryngology and hearing centers. The long-term endorser and star painter, Easton Dong, was on site to tell his stories. The 2017 winner of Hearing Impairment Scholarship, Huang Jin Teng, a sophomore of the Department of Chinese Literature at Tamkang University, performed piano at the event and was greeted with enthusiastic applause. Activities including Parent-child DIY Painting, Exploration of Ear Paradise, and Hearing Aids Exhibit with professional manufactures were all crowded with thousands of participants. This event was the biggest and the most successful hearing care promotion held by PSA Charitable Foundation in the recent years. President Hsu Shu Hsun of Taipei Station Wholesale Market also praised the World Hearing Day event held by the Foundation and stated that many elders suffered from bad hearing and the Foundation’s charity events are good news for the elders and it should be held continually in the future.

 

Artist and painter, Easton Dong, serves as long-term endorser for hearing care

Through wearing the proper hearing aids, auditory training, and correct communication methods, the artist and painter Easton Dong, who became famous for the film Island Etude, is able to communicate with people with normal hearing fluently. He stated that the long-term endorsement for the PSA Charitable Foundation allows him to grow along with other friends with hearing loss and that March 3^rd is happened to be his birthday. The coincidence made him believe that serving the people with hearing loss is a god given mission for him. Easton Dong speaks sign language and he often serves as the communicative bridge between people with hearing loss and normal hearing to avoid any misunderstanding. From the perspective of a person with hearing loss, he believes the environment, government policy, and the general attitude toward people with hearing loss are quite friendly in Taiwan. However, he suggests that rather than providing assistance and subsidies for the persons with hearing loss, we should help them to find independence.

 

Principles of hearing protection: have enough sleep, watch out for the three hypers, and live a healthy life

Concerning the daily hearing protection, the Director of Cochlear Implant Center of Chung Shan University Hospital, Dr. Ho Hsu Chueh expresses that hearing protection must starts from daily life. Auditory nerve is the eighth pair of the cranial nerve, and auditory cells, like brain cells, require enough sleep to be repaired. It is recommended to have enough sleep to protect hearing health. According to medical literature and studies, common cold, herpes, filtrable virus, and poor blood circulation are all causes of sudden sensorineural hearing loss. Three hypers are also risk factors of hearing loss and need to be watched carefully. Patients with three hypers (hypertension, hyperglycemia, and hyperlipidemia) usually have poor peripheral blood circulation, which could cause hearing loss. The risk of sudden sensorineural hearing loss for the persons with above-listed conditions is 2-5 times that of an average person. There was a clinical case of a college student who went to explore Minxiong Haunted House at a cold night and woke up the next morning with one ear deaf. The cold weather causes vasoconstriction and the lack of sleep decreases the student’s immunity, combine the two and the result is hearing loss. In this kind of incidence, seeking medical treatment within two weeks might be able to reverse the condition by 70-80%.

Hyperlipidemia and smoking have greater effect on progressive hearing loss because those conditions could lead to poor circulation and irreversibly damage the auditory nerve. Dr. Ho further explained that sudden sensorineural hearing loss is usually unilateral due to bodily defense mechanism. However, without prompt treatment, it could easily develop into bilateral hearing loss.

Hearing Impairment Scholarship of PSA Charitable Foundation and the Ears of Love Innovative Idea Competition also had their awards ceremony during the Carnival. The Hearing Impairment Scholarship for 2018 will accept application from December 1^st to 31^st, 2018. Students in high schools, occupational schools, colleges, and graduate schools are welcome to apply. Please see the following website for the brochure: https://goo.gl/XFShTM.