Tears of Joy The Magic of HEARING

hello everyone

my name is dr raj shekhawat i’m a

clinical audiologist by training

in the past decade and a half i have

worked in countries like india

united states of america singapore new

zealand

england and very soon australia

based on my experience working in

schools

clinics hospitals universities private

practice

there’s one thing i’ve noticed worldwide

and that is people tend to underestimate

the significance of

hearing hearing impairment is invisible

in nature

unlike visual impairment or person with

physical impairment if there are two

people standing

and one of them has hearing loss there

is absolutely no way

purely by looking at them we can predict

who has hearing impairment

the very fact that i’m talking to you

the very fact that i can speak in five

different languages

is purely because of my hearing

when a child is born based on their

hearing ability

they hear a lot and based on that they

learn to speak and they learn a language

not only speech and language development

all the other spheres of our lives are

also dependent on our hearing

the moment we get up from the bed using

an alarm

hearing dependent we get up and we

go to work our commute hearing dependent

our our work life interacting with

colleagues

hearing dependent education attending

lectures interacting with peers

hearing dependent entertainment watching

movies and watching tv and listening to

music

hearing dependent hearing is extremely

extremely

important and everything around us

depends on hearing

in fact hearing can heighten our

emotional encounters too

let me share this very recent encounter

of mine with you all

one of the most strongest emotions

i have ever experienced in my life was

tears of joy

as they say in hindi ke asu

two months back precisely on 30th of

june

9 13 night my wife went into labor

we rushed to the hospital and after

intensive 12 hours of labor

9 29 in the morning on first of july

our son georgios raj was born

i can very vividly remember his head

crowning that his beautiful face coming

and then the whole body and then

he cried

oh boy tears went rolling down my cheeks

it’s so amazing that a cry of a newborn

is capable of evoking such strong

emotions in us however

when i put my audiologist’s hat on i can

probably understand

why that happens to us basically

the auditory area and the emotional area

in our brain

the part of our brain which processes

sounds and the part of the brain which

processes

emotions are linked together

and that is why when we hear a nice

soothing favorite song of ours we

instantly feel relaxed and calm

contrary to that if we hear a sound of a

ambulance or a police siren it evokes

distrusting feelings

that’s because the emotions and hearing

they are connected to each other to

understand this

let’s do an activity together i want you

all to close your eyes

go ahead close your eyes with me now

i want you to think about the most

exciting day of your life till today

relive that day in your mind

go through that day that could be

your day of your wedding the day your

child was born

you want some award you got some good

news

or your time with your loved one just

keep replaying that moment

that day those conversations

in your mind

it’s beautiful isn’t it now

i want you to keep your eyes closed

but this time you are again replaying

that

very same incidence

but there’s a catch and the catch is

this time you can’t hear

anything at all you can’t hear

any conversations any sounds

let it sink in go back

replay that day but this time

you can’t hear a thing

what do you think do you think

your day was as exciting as

it was when you could hear everything

i would leave you to answer that

question to yourself

that signifies the importance of hearing

in our lives let’s talk about our

magical hearing hearing is one of the

first sensory organs to develop

in fact during the very first trimester

of

pregnancy hearing starts developing

by the time the little baby is 16 weeks

old in the mother’s womb

the baby can detect the sound and by the

time the baby is

24 weeks old the baby can sort of start

turning their heads

towards the source of the sound

sound is everywhere in the environment

when a sound is created there are

vibrations which are created

the sound waves which are created in the

environment and when those sound waves

travel

towards our head this part here

we call it pinna the purpose of this

part

is to filter to act as a funnel to

receive the sounds

and then direct the sounds to our ear

canal

when sound waves pass through the ear

canal they reach our

ear drum and they impinge on the eardrum

as a result of that the eardrums

vibrates

and there are three very tiny bones

which are attached to a ear drum

on one side and on the other side

they’re attached to this

snail-shaped spiral structure called

cochlea which is filled with salty water

now that’s the part where real

magic happens almost

on the size of our thumb there are

thousands of hair cells in the cochlea

which converts the vibration energy of

sounds

into electrical impulses and then these

electrical impulses

are carried by a nerve auditory nerve

all the way to human brain where the

sounds

are processed let’s understand

the importance of these hair cells in

our cochlea

although they are magical and they do

this very significant part

of converting the sound impulses into

electrical impulses

they are also very delicate and prone

to damage and once they are damaged

there’s absolutely no way we could

regenerate them in humans

so they are very very precious

let me show you something

these are various colorful pipe cleaners

beautiful colorful ones they represent

our hair cells

okay and my hand here it represent

the sound level or the sound waves now

see carefully

the sound waves are coming and they hit

the hair cells

and the hair cells are processing those

sounds and they’re converting them into

electrical impulses

which then go to the brain okay when the

sound level is

mild to moderate the hair cells are fine

they are dancing around they look

healthy they look fine

however imagine the sounds levels are

really really loud let’s see what

happens then

watch carefully loud sound level comes

and goes like

dang

see what has happened to our hair cells

let’s try and bring them back to where

they were

no one’s damaged damage

for good damage forever

this is extremely extremely important

and

us on the name of entertainment we

expose

ourselves to very very loud noises and

loud sounds

let me give you an example the other day

i was traveling to work

and i was taking a train to my work

going to central london

few meters away there was a lad young

lad sitting with earphones in his ears

and blasting the music

me sitting few meters away could

literally hear

everything i could hear the song i could

hear the beats i could hear the lyrics

when we are putting these earbuds or

headphones and blasting the music

remember we are putting the noise source

very very close to our eardrums

and then putting our hair cells on risk

research shows that the amount of noise

level by which we can be exposed to

and the safety duration for how long

it’s safe for us to be exposed to that

duration

and that research shows that when the

sound intensity is around

85 decibel we could be safely exposed to

that sound levels

for eight hours that sounds like a long

time isn’t it

however listen to this very carefully

every time the sound intensity increases

by just

three decibel the safety duration

reduces to half

which means if the sound intensity

increases from 85

to 88 decibel the safety duration

reduces from eight hours to four hours

and if we do our maths by this time the

sound levels are 115

decibel the safety duration of exposure

is only 30 seconds

i want you to reflect on the times when

we go to

night clubs and parties and functions

and and work the noise levels around

us how loud are those and is it safe for

us

to be exposed to those levels next time

you’re exposing yourself to loud noise i

would want you all to think about these

hair cells

that’s exactly what’s going to happen to

our hair cells

so it’s extremely extremely important to

be very careful

and looking after our hearing

unlike a child who is born with a

permanent hearing loss

there’s nothing much we can do as as

such

we can only identify that hearing loss

as early as possible by doing a newborn

hearing screening

that could happen on the day one the

child is born and we can detect the

hearing loss

and that we can put a management plan in

place asap

contrary to that the noise level

which are there in our environment and

if we get a hearing loss because of them

that’s a purely acquired hearing loss

the hearing loss which can be 100

preventable research shows that

there are 5.2 million people

under the age of 19 years and there are

26 million people above the age of 19

years

who develop hearing loss because of

exposure to noise

permanent hearing loss which can be 100

preventable so

what is the solution well the solution

is

i have created this very cool acronym

called app app apps as in the apps which

we use in day-to-day lives

now what is that app stands for a

stands for awareness and attitude

it’s extremely extremely important for

all of us to be

aware about the dangerous impact of

noise and sounds

on our hearing there are a lot of people

who are not even aware

that unknowingly they are exposing

themselves to

dangerous levels of noise and it can

lead to

permanent hearing loss so a talk like

this

is a tiny attempt to create that

awareness

once we have that awareness there can be

a positive shift in our attitude

that we don’t necessarily have to expose

ourselves to

very loud sounds on the name of

entertainment

p p stands for prevention

now there are two things we can do in

terms of prevention

first reduce the level of sound

if we can for example if we are

listening

through loud music through our

headphones using our phone

we have absolute authority to reduce the

loudness level

isn’t it second if we can’t reduce the

loudness for example if you’ve gone to a

place

where the music is playing and it’s

beyond our control

what we can then do is move away from

the sound

source as we move away from the sound

source the intensity of sound by which

we are exposing ourself

goes down and that way we can save our

hearing

third and the most important thing is

protection

what do we mean by protection i’m sure

you must have seen

all these music sensations like sam

smith and

taylor swift and ariana grande and bruno

mars

whenever they are doing live

performances they always wear musicians

plug in their ears and what those plugs

do is

they not only help them get a feedback

on their singing but they

also help to attenuate or reduce the

noise exposure and save their hearing

so it’s extremely important for us as

well that if we are going to a

very loud concert or if you’re going to

a party which is going to be super duper

loud

please make sure there are some measures

in place

to use hearing protections which can

protect your hearing

i grew up listening to this beautiful

story of aladdin

aladdin the magical lamp the genie

we all know that that magical lamp you

rub it

a genie will appear and then the genie

will fulfill three wishes

exactly the same way we all

have a magical lamp with us and that

magical lamp

is our hearing system if

we rub it in a wrong way

the genie will die and once the genie

will die

all the magic of hearing the fact that

we can

hear birds chirping the fact that we can

hear rustling of

leaves we can hear the voices of our

loved ones

we can hear our newborn baby cry which

will evoke

tears of joy all that magic around us

will disappear in no time so it’s

extremely important

to save our hearing so please be

aware protect and prevent

noise-induced hearing loss don’t let the

genie die

don’t let the magic of hearing disappear

from your lives

thank you so much