General Meeting: August 2024

Helen Barrow is a hearing loss management consultant and the only qualified tutor for Lip Reading in Nottinghamshire. She has had lifelong hearing loss and her talk on the role of lip reading was informative and entertaining. It was particularly relevant to an audience of retired people given that 50% of over 55s have some hearing loss and 80% of over 70s.

Helen used a screen presentation on statistics and facts on hearing loss, the structure and functioning of the ear and how sounds reach the brain from the Cochlea. We had leaflets on how to be a Hearing Aid to someone with hearing loss and ways to help ourselves too.

There was some audience participation to try out various sounds with the people sitting near us. Most of us were completely unfamiliar with lip reading and it is proved very tricky and pretty complex to learn but this was a good introduction and plenty of information to take away.

Marianne White