Newsletter
1998-2 - published August 1998
Editorial
Hans Verschuure, Secretary-General
ISA
Part of this issue was used as a
special issue for the AAA meeting in Los Angeles. It was at that time,
unfortunately, not possible to compile a full newsletter.
We wanted to have a newsletter to
distribute at the AAA meeting and
our third newsletter was not particularly
interesting as the greater part of its contents dealt with the changed
constitution.
This newsletter focuses on the work
of the International Society of Audiology and its global aspects, its connections
with the developing world through Hearing International, with Hearing International
itself, with the affiliated members and with WHO.
One of the HI-IFOS-ISA Centers is
located in Costa Rica. The aims of these HI-IFOS-ISA centers are to raise
awareness of auditory problems and to find ways to implement services in
the country using its own infrastructure. One of the best examples of such
a service is the Costa Rica Center that has done a prevalence study in
Costa Rica schoolchildren. Preliminary results of this study were reported
on a PASA meeting organized at the AAA meeting in Fort Lauderdale last
year. Here is an update showing how such an initiative can develop into
general acceptance in a country and a good dissemination of knowledge.
Report from Costa Rica
Dr. Juan J. Madriz, MD. (Director
"Costa Rica IFOS/ISA/HI Regional
Centre"; San José, Costa
Rica)
The year 1997 has been a very productive
year in the Central American isthmus, from the point of view of communication
disorders and audiology. Major developments are taking place in the different
countries of the area, in a moment when democracy and development are rapidly
taking over the years of struggle and discontent.
In Costa Rica, the "First National
Prevalence Study on Deafness for School Age Population" completed its data
collecting phases and the data analysis has started in the Hearing Research
Institute (HRI) of the University of Nottingham (U.K.) and in the National
Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCS) of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the U.S.A. A presentation about
the preliminary results of this research was done in Boston at the Annual
Convention of the American Speech-Language
and Hearing Association (ASHA) in November.
Major changes are taking place in
the Health Sector in Costa Rica, where the Ministry of Health has engaged
in profound reforms concerning the control and surveillance of disabilities.
The new Division of Health Development created a unit that will take the
"Regional Centre" as a key arm to monitor the status of hearing disorders,
working on prevention of deafness and hearing impairment, promotion of
ear care, continuous education for professionals in the field and from
now on, early
identification activities will
be the direct responsibility of the Costa Rican Social Security.
Several major continuous education
activities have taken place in the region - some promoted by the "Costa
Rica IFOS/ISA/HI Centre" - including lectures on "Otoacoustic Emissions"
(Dr. Ignacio Mora - Mexico), "Screening Methods in Audiology" (Dr. George
T. Mencher - Canada), Prevention of Voice Disorders (Dr. Juan J. Madriz
- Costa Rica). The University of Costa Rica started training a new generation
of technicians in audiometry and the Universidad La Salle graduated its
first generation of teacher for the deaf.
Finally, the first steps have been
taken to integrate the audiological efforts of the region through an initiative
to network the different institutions, agencies, universities and individuals
working in the field of audiology and communication disorders. This is
aimed at creating an inventory of resources in the area, supporting needs
for development of better services, training programs and facilitating
sharing of information through the Internet. The home page (NetSalud) of
the Ministry of Health will start a section of Disability and Hearing Disorders.
1998 looks as a challenging
year ahead and we will show our accomplishments through this ISA
newsletter.
In our newsletter we publish also
announcements of meetings. We received a request from our US Associate
Editor to publish this meeting on Tinnitus.
Conference announcement
The Sixth Annual Conference on the
Management of the Tinnitus Patient
will be held at The University
of Iowa, Iowa City, on September 18-19, 1998.
Professionals who provide tinnitus
management and patients who suffer
from tinnitus are invited to attend.
The Guest of Honor will be Professor
Peter H. Wilson, Ph.D., a psychologist from Flinders University in
Australia. He will speak on Attention-Control and Cognitive Restructuring
Therapies for Tinnitus
and a critique of Habituation Therapy.
Other guest speakers will be Glorio Rech, Ph.D., Director of the American
Tinnitus Association and Michael Block, pH, Customer Service Manager at
Starkey Laboratories, Minnesota.
University of Iowa Faculty include
Paul Abbas, Ph.D., Auditory Physiologist; Bruce Gantz, MD, Neurotologist;
Brian McCabem MD, Neurotologist, Richard Smith, MD, Pediatric Neurotologist,
Richard Tyler, Ph.D., Audiologist, Christie Novak, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist,
David Young, MA, Biofeedback Therapist.
Topics covered will include Epidemiology,
Physiology, Audiological Measurement, Psychology, Habituation Training,
Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Medical and Surgical Evaluation and Management,
Hearing Aids and Maskers, Hyperacusis, Tinnitus in Children, Support Groups,
Psychotherapy, Relaxation Therapy, and a Patient Forum.
For registration information
please contact, Richard Tyler, The University of Iowa Department
of Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery, 200 Hawkins
Drive C21GH, Iowa City IA 52242 phone (319) 356-2471; FAX (319) 353-6739;
email rich-tyler@uiowa.edu.
ISA and IFOS have
been involved together in trying to establish centers around the world.
Originally this was done by direct action, later an organization
was founded, Hearing International. The goings of this
organization has not always
been smooth, particularly not in relation to ISA. On the other hand
some enthusiastic people, primarily from Japan and Thailand have
raised interest and money. A report on the nitty-gritty of international
cooperation.
ISA
and Hearing International
Hans
Verschuure,
Secretary-General
There has
been an ongoing
discussion
in the ISA Board
about
the cooperation with
Hearing
International (HI).
This had
to do with the fact
that procedures
in Hearing International were unclear and actions were not accounted for
in an acceptable way. Some friction had built up over the last couple of
years.
The governing
principle of the relationship between HI and ISA has always been full support
of the goals of Hearing International. ISA as one of the founding
organization of Hearing International has never questioned the intentions
or the goals. ISA has shown its commitment in the past. After the call
for action by Sir John Wilson at the Santa Barbara congress (1984) the
ISA funded activities of newly formed centers in Bangkok and Mexico.
It was
our perception that the role of ISA was played down and our attitude was
often considered as uncooperative. Our problems had to do with sharing
responsibilities of the work and a lack of accountability.
The issues
were discussed with a group from the Board of HI in Bari and the ISA group
had the impression that our concerns were to a great extent accepted. Unfortunately
this did not result in action then.
After a
change in the Board of HI we discussed matters again with the
new Secretary-General
of HI at the EFAS conference in Prague. The
issues
were recognized and a meeting was proposed between HI and its two parent
organizations, IFOS and ISA. Prof. A. Parving of Copenhagen organized this
meeting that was held in Copenhagen in November. At the same time
a Board meeting of HI was organized to which ISA was invited, although
not represented in the Board.
The issues
were discussed in a group of representative of HI (Prof. Suzuki,Prof. V.
Newton and Prof. S. Prasansuk), IFOS (Prof. P. Alberti, Prof. E. Offeciers)
and ISA (Prof. A. Parving, Prof. G. Mencher and myself). Most of these
people also form the HI Centers’ Committee. Because of preparatory work
the issues were discussed and in a one-day talk the issues could be settled.
These
include:
A new and detailed application procedure for new Centers was
developed Criteria for the acceptance of centers were formulated;
a center should be located preferably in the developing world, should have
a reach-out program, should have a clear educational goal and should
be well established
(financially, economically and politically) in that
particular country
or region of the world
A procedure
for the advisory board of a center was drafted
A visitation
procedure was established before the actual acceptance
as a center
A review procedure
was established after the first two years and
every four years
thereafter
The different membership
categories of HI were discussed. It was
decided that recognized
centers could be no members but would be
targeted as recipients
of support of which reports should be widely
published
An auditing
procedure was established
The new
rules would involve more contacts with the centers and this would unfortunately
increase the overhead costs if members of the Centers’ Committee
would always do visitations. It was accepted that ISA or IFOS or HI members
living nearby or on a visiting trip could do the visitation.
These Rules
were accepted at the next-day board meeting of the HI
attended
by Sir John and Lady Jean Wilson, Prof. Hinchcliffe and the
others
mentioned above. Also Dr. A.W. Smith of the WHO office
(PHD-Program)
in Geneva participated in the meeting.
National
chapters of Hearing International and its goal.
A major
issue at the meeting was the establishment of national chapters.
These national divisions are essential for the work of Hearing International.
They are functioning now only in Japan, Thailand and India and one will
soon start in the UK. The significance and role of national divisions was
discussed at length: the major goal of Hearing International is to raise
awareness of hearing impairment and of the consequences for those suffering
from it. A second (but not unimportant) goal is to raise money for research
projects in the country itself and in the developing world. Such fundraising
is usually done in cooperation with service organizations like Rotaries
or industrial companies. One has to realize that awareness campaigns can
only be effective if well-defined and appealing goals can be formulated.
A list of good projects in a number of countries should be made available.
It will give HI the possibility to present projects to interested
service organizations or companies for research support. Hearing
International (and through it IFOS and ISA) should guarantee the quality
of the project and should organize the monitoring and auditing of the project.
In this respect the new rules for the recognition of centers are important,
although projects should
not be limited to the HI-Centers. It is
understandable
that good projects from recognized centers will be
prioritized;
good projects from other centers will be closely monitored and recipients
have to accept monitoring and auditing.
After the
two-days meeting it was felt that partners had come much closer together
and could / should cooperate more. The differences of opinion were removed
and a common position was reached on a number of points. It was also felt
that if HI would not get to a good start within the next year, we should
rethink our strategy.
An example of a working chapter
of Hearing International is Hearing
International Thailand,
which organized a conference and a fund
raising meeting. A
report.
Thailand
International
Conference
on Pediatric ORL
and
Otology Update.
Hans
Verschuure, Secretary General
International
Society of Audiology
In January
1988 Prof. S. Prasansuk in Bangkok organized a fund-raising
activity. Additionally to this fund-raiser a congress was organized
as an update of the activities of the Bangkok HI Center. HRH Princess
Mahachakri Sirindhorn opened the congress. A round Table was organized
to get a survey of the result of 15 year activity in Bangkok to raise
awareness in South-East Asia and to discuss the relationship between
the Bangkok center, Hearing International, Hearing International-Thailand
and the founding organizations IFOS and ISA.
Most impressive
were presentations from Thailand, Indonesia, India, the Philippines and
Malaysia. In these countries audiological services were virtually non-existent
15 years ago. Now surveys have been carried out and prevention programs
have been started, particularly primary (how can we avoid people from becoming
hearing impaired) and secondary (how can we restore impaired hearing to
normal hearing) prevention programs. Sofar rather little attention has
been giving to tertiary prevention programs (like hearing aid provision
etc).
At the
same time a meeting of the Board of Hearing International took
place.
In this meeting the developments since Copenhagen and the
difficulties
of implementing the changes were discussed, particularly the deviating
structure in the only HI division that really raises substantial amounts
of money, Japan. The decisions of Copenhagen were endorsed and the financial
reports were discussed in view of these decisions.
The importance
of national chapters was reiterated and key persons were identified. We
call upon all our members to think about starting a national chapter or
division. It seems a necessity to raise awareness in the population and
amongst politicians. Hearing impairment is one of the most common health
problems but is not recognized as such in many countries. It should get
its proper place and the foundation of a national division of Hearing International
in which professionals, industry, service organizations and political organization
can work together seems to be essential.
Further information can
be obtained from the
Secretary-General of Hearing
International, Prof. Valerie Newton, e-mail: newton@fs1.ed.man.ac.uk
or by mail: Prof. V.E.
Newton, Centre of Audiology, University of
Manchester,
Dept. of Education of the Deaf and Speech Pathology, Oxford Road,
Manchester, M13 9PL Manchester, UK
ISA also
participates in consultations with WHO. At WHO is a program for the
Prevention of Deafness and Hearing impairment (PDH). This program
organizes informal consultation each year. This years
meeting was held 3-4 February
1998 at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Consultation
meeting of the PDH-program of the WHO
Hans
Verschuure,
Secretary-General
ISA
In a two-day
meeting in which amongst others Hearing International, IFOS,
the WHO-Centers and ISA participated the results of
last-years activities were discussed, as was the program for
the coming year. Some reports from interesting activities were given
like an awareness campaign in Brazil and an educational training program
was presented. The importance of further education adapted to the needs
of the country involved was stressed.
Further
discussions involved strategic planning. The old concepts of
pathology,
impairment, disability and handicap will be abandoned by WHO as this
emphasizes the negative aspects; positive words like activities and participation
will be used instead.
Attention
was given to the themes of the program. In the past the primary and secondary
aspects were strongly emphasized in OME programs and the program
on the use of ototoxic drugs. From the floor (primarily IFOS and ISA) came
the suggestion to start programs on tertiary prevention, which means rehabilitation.
There is a high prevalence of sensorineural hearing impairment and
it is growing through noise pollution and aging. The number of hearing
aids in use is small. The reasons for the discrepancy have to be further
assessed. An important issue seems the lack of an infrastructure in the
majority of the countries. This and cultural problems could even be more
important than the price of an aid. A meeting will be organized at the
end of the year to discuss these problems and to find solutions for the
future.
By changing
our constitution the possibility has opened for affiliated
membership.
Affiliation was offered to all regional Societies and
national
Societies. The two regional Societies of which we are aware
joined
us. They are the PanAmerican Society of Audiology and the
European
Federation of Audiology Societies. Their logo will be
printed
on the cover page of Audiology from now on.
Logos of
some of our affiliated regional
members,
PASA and EFAS. By clicking the EFAS
logo you
can link to the EFAS website
Other
affiliated members are the national Societies. We have been present
at the conventions of these two. Our Vice President was at the convention
of the ASHA and reported on his ISA activities. We show their logo
to show their commitment to global activities. Clicking the logo connects
you to the website.
The other national affiliate Society
is the American Academy of Audiology which held its annual convention
in Los Angeles last April. Report on ISA’s presence at the AAA convention.
The meeting took place in a rainy and rather cold Los Angeles with presence
of the Vice-President and the Secretary General. Again, you can connect
to their website by clicking the logo.
ISA
at the AAA convention
Hans
Verschuure, Secretary-general ISA
In April
our affiliate member the American Academy of Audiology met for its
yearly convention in Los Angeles. At last year’s meeting there had been
consultations between the AAA-Board and the ISA board about affiliate membership
and we were very happy to hear shortly afterwards that AAA had decided
to join the ISA as an affiliate national member. The benefits for
AAA and ISA had to be worked out and some of these became visible at the
Los Angeles meeting.
Featured
ISA Lecture
First of
all the ISA organized a sponsored presentation. After some
discussion
it was decided that this featured session would be organized by your
Secretary-General and would focus on his special interests and research
activities. A session on research in digital hearing aids in a number of
European universities was organized. The idea was to present ISA as a scientific
organization with strong links in clinical work and a global interest.
The global part was stressed in the Americas by talking about European
research. We hope to reverse the honor sometime on an European congress.
The timing
of these featured sessions is somewhat unlucky, on Sunday morning
with the convention ending at noon and thus most of more than 6000
participants gone. Nevertheless there was an audience of more than 100
interested participants. The program consisted of a number of high-quality
papers:
Verschuure (Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
on concepts of compression Hohmann (Carl von Ossietzky University,
Oldenburg, Germany) on noise reduction using algorithms based on
Boone (technical University Delft, the Netherlands) on noise
reduction by array-microphone design Dreschler (Academic Medical
Center Amsterdam, the Netherlands) on the necessity, the opportunities
and risks of field studies showing the results of two field studies.
The presenters
included also some work done in other European
universities.
Verschuure stressed the notion that Europe is unifying at
present
and that much of the present work is no longer supported by
national
governments but is funded in direct competition by the European Commission
in Brussels (the European counterpart of funding by Washington).
Exhibition
A second
sign of presence was at the exhibition. The AAA had given the ISA
some free space at their Global Village booth, emphasizing their
commitment to worldwide activities.
The ISA
presented their major activities in the booth that was manned by our Vice-President
George Mencher, our ex-congress President (1984) and present PASA
President Sandy Gerber, the next congress President Jorge Schwartzmann
and our Secretary-General Hans Verschuure. The activities shown were:
Our journal Audiology (in cooperation with Decker publishers) of
which free copies were handed out to interested people
The 1998 congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, showing some
posters, registration forms and, for those willing to register and pay
up a discount registration fee.
The 2000 congress in the Hague, the Netherlands, with some posters
Our interest in the activities of Hearing International with posters and
some leaflets Our affiliation with the Pan-American Society of Audiology
. In my opinion
activities like this are worthwhile enabling us to
show ourselves
and to get people together in an effort to join forces. See you in
Miami Beach, next year, to follow the beat and to further advertise our
activities including the next congress in The Hague.
Announcement
In Buenos
Aires there will be a meeting of the Executive
Committee
at opening Sunday. This will be the last meeting of its
kind.
At the General Assembly meeting an election will take place
of the
new Assembly and the officers. From then on the new
constitution,
adopted in Bari and passed by our law-firm in Geneva,
Switzerland
will be effective.
Attend
the General Assembly and hear reports on our activities,
see our
financial statements, decide on how we go on from here. Be
involved.
Bring in new members, full members (University degree)
of associated
members (all working in the field without a University
degree)
and affiliated members (your national Society). We hope to
announce
in Buenos Aires the opportunity for students to become
student
members. Phonak, Stäfä, Switzerland, will sponsor their
membership.
Make your students members of ISA.
