Important Consumer Information

At Family Hearing Center, we are dedicated to the safety and well-being of our patients. We are continually learning new and improved ways to assist our patients with their hearing. This section of our site is provided to educate our patients as well as the general public about information we feel is important to the hearing-impaired community. The following is a list of links we believe you will find useful as well as informative. Please check back soon as we are planning to make updates to this page!

Noisy Toys
St. Paul, MN - It's been a tough year toys. Massive recalls, lead-tainted paint, dangerous magnets, wariness about toys made in China. As the Christmas shopping begins in earnest, the Sight & Hearing Association once again warns toy shoppers about another danger: noisy toys.

Fifteen of the 20 toys tested this year for Sight & Hearing Associations annual Noisy Toys List sounded off louder than 100 decibels (dBA). The time it takes to risk hearing damage at that level? 15 minutes.

For the 10th year, the nonprofit organization and researchers from the University of Minnesota tested toys taken right off retailers shelves for potentially dangerous sound levels. All of the toys measured over 90 dB directly at the speaker of the toy. And 15 of the 20 are meant for children three years or younger.

According to guidelines, by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control, the permissible exposure time (the amount of time you should listen) is cut in half with every 3 decibels over 85 dB.

"Noise-induced hearing loss is cumulative," explains Julee Sylvester, Sight and Hearing Association spokesperson. "It doesn't typically happen from one event; it gradually happens over time. That's why it's important to start protecting hearing at a young age.

Fire Safety Concerns for Persons with Hearing Loss (reported in Healthy Hearing, Jan. 2008)
The Hearing Loss Association of America has long suspected that people died in fires because they were unable to hear smoke alarms. A recent study by the Fire Protection Research Foundation finally shed some light on the failure of most commonly used systems to awake millions of hard-of-hearing people. The study’s conclusions point to the effectiveness to lower-pitch alarms.

Conventional smoke alarms failed to awaken up to 43 % in study

According to the study, “Waking Effectiveness of Alarms for Adults Who Are Hard of Hearing”, which also tested various alarms that did not rely on sound emission, such as bed and pillow shakers and strobe lights, the lower pitch tone was considerably more effective than higher pitches (typically 3150 Hz) commonly used in smoke detectors. In fact, the high signal emitted by conventional smoke alarms failed to awaken up to 43 percent of tested subjects. Bed and pillow shakers woke up over 80 percent of study’s participants but strobe lights had the highest failure rate, waking up only 27 percent of those tested. In contrast, a specific audible multiple frequency signal of a 520 Hz square wave successfully alerted over 90 percent of participants when used at the code-minimum sound level of 75 decibels for 30 seconds.

	CDC Public Service Announcement - The Center for Disease Control has posted some important information about hurricane safety on their website in ASL (American Sign Language). The categories with "ASL" checked have an ASL video you can view with important info.
More Information Coming Soon!