Speechless

I stumbled upon this forum.

Couldn't believe the stuff people say about Audiology.

They seriously don't know anything!

I really advise people who doesn't know anything to think before you speak (or type). It could mislead other innocent people who actually have interest in Audiology.

It's really sad reading this.

Audiology is so much way better than Biomedical. Period.

Rehab Services' Connection Lunch

A first of many for me :)

Some of which includes making peach jelly!



And it was delicious :D
(I got the recipe from this link, try it out!)

There was a best photo competition as well.



(I designed this :P)

But my group didn't win :(

Never mind, eating pizza with them was fun!

Hoping for more good food and gatherings in the future :)

Screen Newborns for Hearing Impairment

*As taken from the Star's archive, letter published on 22nd April 2009. Credit to Saravanan :)

WE have a three-and-a-half year old son whom we recently discovered is hearing impaired.

The news came as a shock to us and his teachers as the boy did not show any indications of hearing impairment. He is able to understand us quite perfectly, functions well in school and the only missing aspect in his development is his speech.

A hearing test was requested by his speech therapist as part of the procedure to rule out hearing problems that may hinder his speech development. As a result, we discovered that our son has bilateral mixed (moderate to severe) hearing loss.

Infant hearing screening is conducted widely in most developed countries. Otoacoustic emission (OAE), an easy, quick and inexpensive method with accuracy of 90% to 99%, is commonly used.

Unfortunately, OAE screening is not widely available in this country. Only selected private hospitals include this in the newborn screening package.

There is also a lack of awareness and education on infant hearing loss. Perhaps hearing loss among babies is low and unlike other paediatric issues, it is not something fatal.

The advantages of early detection of hearing loss and early intervention for hearing-impaired children are well established. Early intervention can promote a child’s normal language development and takes full advantage of the developing sensory system.

Children with hearing loss below six months of age who are given the necessary interventions are found to do better in general development, expressive and receptive language skills and personal-social areas than children identified after six months of age. They are also on par in their language and cognitive skills with normal hearing children.

In Malaysia, we found that infant hearing screenings are conducted in some teaching hospitals for research purposes only and mostly on high-risk babies. The mean age of hearing loss detection in Malaysia is 48 months. This is beyond the 0-3 years period, which is the critical period in maximising the brain plasticity for a child’s language development.

We therefore urge the Govern­ment and medical authorities to seriously consider offering infant hearing screening widely and educate parents accordingly about infant hearing loss. While the percentage of hearing loss among low-risk babies is low, let us not leave the odd child out. A child stands to benefit considerably from early detection and intervention.

WMD,

Penang.

Symptoms of Hearing Loss

If you experience any of these symptoms, do immediately seek an audiologist's consultation:

1. Not being able to understand others' speech - people seem to be mumbling when they are speaking

2. Misinterpreting what others say

3. Loss of confidence

4. Difficulty understanding conversation in group settings

5. Asking others to repeat themselves

6. Difficulty hearing television, radio and/or telephone

7. Difficulty hearing in public gatherings such as concert halls or theatres where sound sources are far away

Don't wait and see. Your hearing senses deserve better!

Hearing in Poetry

"Our hearing is a choice and dainty sense,
And hard to mend, yet soon it may be marred,
Blows, falls, and noise... all these...
Breed tingling in the ears, and hurt our hearing."

~Physicians of the medieval medical school of Salerno.

For My Fellow Colleagues & Working Friends

*credit to Faiz Mokhtar :)*

Beware of Scheming Devils

Everyone should take note of this. I think it has been going on for quite a while but people are not really aware of it.

I was nearly scammed a week ago. It actually happened to my older brother, except that his X-Box's hard drive was 'lost' and mine was my camera's memory card and battery. So what happened was, my camera was broken and naturally I sent it for repair at the shop I purchased it from (in Digital Mall, PJ). They charged me RM50 just for the cost of quoting repair charges to Canon. I obliged, as I had no time to go to a Canon store myself. It took them 2 weeks to quote the charges to me, which I refused as it was too expensive, and another 3 weeks for me to get it back.

I remember clearly that I did not take out the memory card and battery, and the salesperson also did not give it to me. He only gave me the camera casing, so that only the camera is sent off to Canon. But when my boyfriend picked up the camera, he didn't know, and so he brought the camera back to me without the battery and memory card.

The next day both of us went back to the shop to claim the memory card and battery. I waited in the car as there was no parking, while my bf went to talk with the guy. They argued (according to bf) and bf let the guy talked to me on the phone. The guy repeatedly said he always ALWAYS always give back the memory card and battery to customers, or if he had taken those things, it would have been written on the receipt, which in my case, he didn't write. So I argued with him back, saying I know I didn't take those things, and said, 'why would I lie to you?!' He defended himself, saying he knows what he did, blablabla. I knew at that moment he's cheating on me and so I said 'whatever' and told my bf to take a picture of the shop (in case I want to write to newspapers or something).

My clever bf not only took the picture of the shop, but also the receipt. After we left the place, about 20 minutes or so the guy called back, asking how many GB was my memory card. I told him, and he said he found one memory card. I checked back my receipt of the camera purchase and reconfirmed with him and he said, he found both the memory card and battery. Huh. The photo-taking must have made him chickened out.

So I got those things back. But my brother wasn't as fortunate. The same thing went on, where the guy said no, he didn't take the hard drive or he would have written it on the receipt and all that BS. My brother didn't take pictures of the shop, so the thief got away uncaught.

But please, be very aware of these kind of people. It might happen to you. This is a public service announcement and it is the truth.

The Wedding Singer

Recently there were a lot of weddings going on, especially since it was a school break. I've attended some as the partner for Faiz Mokhtar, who was invited from his friends and colleagues. So far all of the receptions were held at the bride's or groom's houses. Each wedding (hrmm, maybe except for the Terengganu one) will put on full blast wedding songs, easily vibrating the guests' eardrums to the limits. Sometimes it was a live wedding singer; sometimes it was a record. Either way it annoyed the hell out of me because I really hate noise pollution. Plus, I'm an audiologist, I should be concerned about this. Someone should be out there with a dosimeter to measure the level of noise the weddings are producing or something.

Exposure to noise could actually cause Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL). There are 3 types of NIHL: Acoustic trauma, Noise-Induced Temporary Threshold Shift (NITTS) and Noise-Induced Permanent Threshold Shift (NIPTS). NIHL usually affect the high frequency sounds, although constant noise exposure will also cause it to spread to low frequency sounds. I will update more about this; but for now here are some pictures of me attending weddings with my partner in tow :) From here, we can see my boyfriend's fave batik :P



Seremban


Keramat


Kuala Terengganu


Muar


Petaling Jaya

Final Submission

I submitted my thesis.

No feeling. None at all.

What's that? Euphoria? Did I say that?

I didn't even make a copy for myself.

I forgot, actually, haha.

But yay, everything's settled.

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped.

Sincerely from the bottom of my heart.

The lucky ones, I've even highlighted in my 'Penghargaan'. You guys are the reason the thesis is completed.


"I can no other answer make, but thanks and THANKS!" - William Shakespeare.

Name-Drop in Movie. When Will It Be?

Last night I watched Night at the Museum 2: the Smithsonian (I think this is the title). It was dead boring. Funny but boring. There was no content at all! But, there was one scene that totally caught my attention. The scene where Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) was messing around with the Smithsonian guard, Brandon (pronounced Brundun- LOL moment). He mentioned about him not being a speech-therapist to teach Larry how to pronounce his name correctly (if I'm not mistaken).

See, even speech-therapists get a name-drop. In a box-office movie at that.

When will Audiologists get name-drops? In a song, even?

Nevertheless. Jonas Brothers voicing cupids? Total adorableness.

Beautiful Pressure in KL

Want to experience changing of middle ear pressure amidst gorgeous KL scenery?

You can do so, by heading up to Look Out Point, Ampang~!

The location is on a hill, so once you go up there, the atmospheric pressure becomes more negative than the middle ear pressure. You would feel a feeling of blockage. To overcome this feeling, you may perform the Valsalva maneuver. How you ask? You introduce positive pressure by pinching your nose and then slowly blow through your mouth. This will then equalize the middle ear pressure.

Once you reach Look Out Point, you would most probably forget everything as the view on top would simply blow you away. It blew me away. Simply fascinating.

There were several restaurants where you can enjoy the scenery and stimulate your palette at the same time. The food were okay and affordable. The price is not that cheap, and not that exorbitant. Me and my friends had our supper at Haven @ d Peak, which is the highest restaurant there. After that we headed to the Menara Tinjau, the highest point, to take in the awesome night view, and of course some picture taking :).





After much snapping, we went back down to KL. None of us actually did experience any changing middle ear pressure going down. But just so you know, going downhill would of course cause more positive middle ear pressure, thus you should be performing Toynbee Maneuver to equalize the pressure. Just a simple maneuver: pinch your nose and swallow.

These maneuvers could be applied especially when you are boarding the flight or diving; this helps to prevent barotrauma.

So what are you waiting for? Head on to Look Out Point, now~! :D