'Audiology in 2015', Alistair Meikle MSHAA. A round of the District Quiz followed our Club meeting

The meeting welcomed our guest speaker Alastair Meikle who addressed us on the subject of Audiology, enlightening us on the definition of the word and subject matter namely our human hearing.

Alastair has run an audiology practice in Edinburgh for many years and introduced his talk with the statistic that over ten million people in the UK suffer from hearing loss. He illustrated his talk with detailed slides showing the human ear and outlined the common and less common problems which afflict us. He took us through current best practice from testing systems and diagnoses to the design of individual systems using digital and wireless technology.

Profound hearing loss, beyond the capacity of hearing aids, can currently only be helped with visual aids, and amplifiers, e.g.. lip-reading, subtitles, telephone amplifiers, etc. However Alistair advised that current research in the UK is being funded to the tune of forty million pounds and the main areas of this research are stem cell identification, brain wave measurement, directional microphones and visual/wi-fi aids.

Alistair took questions from the members and David Cormack thanked Alistair on behalf of the Club. David advised that in his house there was an audio problem which he described as ‘selective’ hearing!

Currie Balerno and Braids Rotary quiz teams then engaged in round two of the 2015 District Quiz with the Currie Balerno team emerging as winners. Lindsay Craig, our team captain, thanked the team from Braids, the quizmaster, the scorers and the Rotary supporters.