katie's blog

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a new powertools database that lists the decibel ratings of common powertools from 18 manufacturers and contains downloadable exposure files.

Have you visited ATA's YouTube channel lately? We recently digitized a bunch of old Public Service Announcements, news programs and television shows about tinnitus. Some of the celebrities include William Shatner, David Letterman and Tony Randall.

The Summer 2011 issue of Tinnitus Today is now available online in ATA's Member Section to download and view.

This special issue features:

What is the Roadmap to a Cure? Simply, it's a chart that identifies what we know about tinnitus right now and what additional information we need so that we can make progress in developing a cure. The Roadmap is a sequence of steps along four paths- A, B, C & D- that begins with finding out what is responsible for producing tinnitus and ends with a successful tinnitus treatment. Path A leads us to identify where the problem is in the brain.

This morning, NPR's "Morning Edition" featured a story on tinnitus. It covers how it affects a patient, as well the latest in research and treatments.

The story also feature's ATA Member Mark Church; ATA-funded researcher Jay Piccirillo, Ph.D.; and Michael Kilgard, Ph.D., who is working on Vagus Nerve Stimulation as a treatment, or possible cure for tinnitus.
 

If you are, or know, a teenager or young adult with tinnitus, there is a new Facebook group just for them: "Music-Induced Tinnitus in Teens" (MITT). This page was started by aspiring tinnitus researcher, Gita Bhattacharya, who has tinnitus and is trying to raise awareness about this problem. If you know a young person who may be at risk for developing tinnitus - pass this link along to them!

Over $60,000 raised in this year's Walks, and still counting!

The Jack Vernon Walk to Silence Tinnitus was held on June 25 and was a rousing success.  The Portland weather cooperated with one of the best days of the year, and all of the Walkers had a great time!  We'll add some more photos soon, but in the meantime, enjoy these shots of the Walk!

You may remember that earlier in 2011, ATA asked for your participation in an MP3 player use survey. Gita Bhattacharya was the investigator behind that survey. In this interview, she talks about how she became interested in tinnitus and shares the results of her survey.

"By analyzing outcomes from the patient's perspective, we hope to provide professionals with evidence to convince people to skip many of the treatments that have shown no benefit and move directly to treatments that have proved beneficial. By looking at the progression and amount of time the various treatments were tried, we  evaluated the migration from relief of symptoms to management of tinnitus."