May Day Holiday 2013

House of Hearing will be closed on Monday 6th May for the May Day Holiday. We will reopen on Tuesday 7th May.

Spring Clean Event 2013

Due to popular demand, House of Hearing is pleased to announce that its 2013 Spring Clean Event will be rerunning on the 3^rd and 4^th April. This is an opportunity for clients to have a free service and clean of their current hearing aids, to have their ears checked and their hearing re-tested. All for free and setting you up to hear as much as possible this coming Spring. 

Call now and reserve an appointment 0131 220 1220.

Easter Opening Hours 2013

House of Hearing will be closed on Good Friday 29th March up to and including Easter Monday 1st April. We will reopen on Tuesday 2nd April.

Emergency procedures: Are you in danger?

A warning is being made to hoteliers that they may be risking the lives of some of their hearing impaired guests by not having the correct emergency procedures in place.

Some 232 hotels in London were surveyed by Action on Hearing Loss and they found that one in ten admitted to not having a specific procedure or equipment for deaf or hard of hearing guests in the event of an emergency.

Of those hotels that had modified equipment systems in place, only 13% used flashing alarms specifically designed for people with reduced hearing ability, in addition to acoustic sirens or bells.

Under the Equality Act 2010, hotels as well as other public areas are duty bound to make 'reasonable adjustments' to accessibility for those people with disabilities.

It is not known if these figures are reflected across all areas of the UK but it would be wise for anyone with affected hearing levels to always ask, when staying at a hotel or guest house, what procedures they have in place for guests with impaired hearing.

How old?

According to an American plastic surgeon, earlobes can give your age away.

Earlobes - like other areas of the face and neck - lose collagen and elasticity in much the same way your face does, leading to sagging lobes that are elongated. This is exacerbated with woman if they wear heavy earrings and hoops that are so popular nowadays.

This plastic surgeon recommends to all his face-lift patients, that they should consider ear lobe surgery in addition to their face-lift as gravity takes its toll on earlobes too.

Did you know? #3

The emperor of Rome, Hadrian 76 to 138 AD who inherited fame for building Hadrian's Wall in Britain, had to cup his ears to hear orders repeated because of hearing difficulties, as recorded in contemporary court descriptions.

Inner ear memory

Our ears still hear sounds even after the sound source has stopped. Researchers have found that sounds create after-vibrations in our inner ear and these vibrations, in all probability, function like a form of short-term memory.

It has always been assumed that the hair cells in the inner ear only moved when they were directly affected by sounds. The study has, however, shown that there are after-vibrations in the inner ear. How long the small hairs move after the sound depends on the strength of the sound and its frequency.

The goal of these after-vibrations, according to the research team, could be to function as a form of mechanical archive or short-term memory in the inner ear. The researchers believe that the after-vibrations can have an effect on our ability to perceive sounds and language. The ability to detect brief gaps in an ongoing stimulus is critical for speech recognition. Even a minor hearing loss can lead to a substantial reduction in these after-vibrations and that would mean it is more difficult to perceive the small gaps in an ongoing stimulus, which in turn would have a bearing on speech recognition.