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Katherine Bouton speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.
A transcript of this interview can be found here.
Dorner manhunt: Investigators work to ID charred human remains
Label: WorldAfter what LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called "a bittersweet night," investigators Wednesday were in the process of identifying the human remains found in the charred cabin where fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner was believed to have been holed up after trading gunfire with officers, authorities said.
If the body is identified as Dorner’s, the standoff would end a weeklong manhunt for the ex-LAPD officer and Navy Reserve lieutenant suspected in a string of shootings following his firing by the Los Angeles Police Department several years ago. Four people have died in the case, allegedly at Dorner’s hands.
Beck said he would not consider the manhunt over until the body was identified as Dorner. Police remained on tactical alert and were conducting themselves as if nothing had changed in the case, officials said.
PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer
The latest burst of gunfire came Tuesday after the suspect, attempting to flee law enforcement officials, fatally shot a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy and seriously injured another, officials said. He then barricaded himself in a wooden cabin outside Big Bear, not far from ski resorts in the snow-capped San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, according to police.
"This could have ended much better, it could have ended worse," said Beck as he drove to the hospital where the injured deputy was located. "I feel for the family of the deputy who lost his life."
The injured deputy is expected to survive but it is anticipated he will need several surgeries. The names of the two deputies have not been released.
TIMELINE: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer
Just before 5 p.m., authorities smashed the cabin's windows, pumped in tear gas and called for the suspect to surrender, officials said. They got no response. Then, using a demolition vehicle, they tore down the cabin's walls one by one. When they reached the last wall, they heard a gunshot. Then the cabin burst into flames, officials said.
Last week, authorities said they had tracked Dorner to a wooded area near Big Bear Lake. They found his torched gray Nissan Titan with several weapons inside, the said, and the only trace of Dorner was a short trail of footprints in newly fallen snow.
According to a manifesto that officials say Dorner posted on Facebook, he felt the LAPD unjustly fired him several years ago, when a disciplinary panel determined that he lied in accusing his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest. Beck has promised to review the case.
DOCUMENT: Read the manifesto
The manifesto vows "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against law enforcement officers and their families. "Self-preservation is no longer important to me. I do not fear death as I died long ago," it said.
On Tuesday morning, two maids entered a cabin in the 1200 block of Club View Drive and ran into a man who they said resembled the fugitive, a law enforcement official said. The cabin was not far from where Dorner's singed truck had been found and where police had been holding news conferences about the manhunt.
The man tied up the maids, and he took off in a purple Nissan parked near the cabin, the official said. About 12:20 p.m., one of the maids broke free and called police.
FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for ex-cop
Nearly half an hour later, officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the stolen vehicle and called for backup, authorities said. The suspect turned down a side road in an attempt to elude the officers but crashed the vehicle, police said.
A short time later, authorities said, the suspect carjacked a light-colored pickup truck. Allan Laframboise said the truck belonged to his friend Rick Heltebrake, who works at a nearby Boy Scout camp.
Heltebrake was driving on Glass Road with his Dalmatian, Suni, when a hulking African American man stepped into the road, Laframboise said. Heltebrake stopped. The man told him to get out of the truck.
INTERACTIVE MAP: Searching for suspected shooter
"Can I take my dog?" Heltebrake asked, according to his friend.
Actress considers deal in NY Baldwin stalking case
Label: LifestyleNEW YORK (AP) — A Canadian actress accused of stalking Alec Baldwin is considering a plea deal.
Genevieve Sabourin (JEHN'-uh-veev SAB'-oo-rihn) appeared Wednesday in a Manhattan court. The case was adjourned until Thursday as she and prosecutors try to hammer out a deal.
Sabourin lives in Quebec and has acted in television and film.
She and Baldwin met on the set of the 2002 sci-fi comedy "The Adventures of Pluto Nash." He had a cameo and she was a publicist. Baldwin says they had dinner together in 2010.
Police originally arrested Sabourin after authorities said she had implored Baldwin to see and to marry her in emails sent only days after he became engaged to yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas.
His publicist confirmed Tuesday that Baldwin and his now-wife are expecting their first child together.
Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia
Label: HealthAt a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.
A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.
Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.
Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.
In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.
“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.
In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.
In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.
Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.
What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.
The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.
Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”
A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.
A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.
Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.
In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.
Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.
Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.
“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.
“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”
Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.
Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 12, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.
Southern California home prices rise; foreclosures fall statewide
Label: BusinessSouthern California’s housing market in January posted strong median home price gains as new foreclosure starts plummeted dramatically across the state.
The six-county region's median home price rose 23.5% from the same month a year earlier to $321,000, according to real estate research firm DataQuick. Home sales rose 10.6% to 16,058 over the same period.
The rise in home prices came as foreclosure starts in California took a massive tumble. The foreclosure decline came as new state laws aimed at prohibiting certain aggressive bank repossession practices went into effect.
The real estate website ForeclosureRadar.com reported a 60.5% decline in the number of default notices issued in California in January compared with December. The number of default notices — the first formal step in the state’s foreclosure process — fell 77.7% from December 2011. A total of 4,500 such filings were logged last month, the lowest number since at least September 2006, when the website’s records begin.
The website gave no explanation for the sharp decrease in notices of default, but noted that the drop coincided with a package of tough new laws that provide homeowners with some of the nation's strongest protections from bank repossession practices taking effect in January.
Most notably, the Homeowner Bill of Rights bans the practice of “dual tracking,” in which a lender seizes a home even while negotiating a lower mortgage payment with the owner.
Passed last year, the legislative package was sponsored by California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris and written by 10 Democratic lawmakers.
The laws also outlawed so-called robo-signing -- the improper or faulty processing of foreclosure documents -- and would allow state agencies and private citizens to sue financial institutions, under limited conditions, for economic compensation and for additional civil damages of up to $50,000 if lenders willfully, intentionally or recklessly violate the law.
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Ex-Bell officials defend themselves as honorable public servants
Label: WorldLess than three years ago, they were handcuffed and taken away in a case alleged to be so extensive that the district attorney called it "corruption on steroids."
But on Monday, two of the six former Bell council members accused of misappropriating money from the small, mostly immigrant town took to the witness stand and defended themselves as honorable public servants who earned their near-$100,000 salaries by working long hours behind the scenes.
During her three days on the stand, Teresa Jacobo said she responded to constituents who called her cell and home phone at all hours. She put in time at the city's food bank, organized breast cancer awareness marches, sometimes paid for hotel rooms for the homeless and was a staunch advocate for education.
"I was working very hard to improve the lives of the citizens of Bell," she said. "I was bringing in programs and working with them to build leadership and good families, strong families."
Jacobo, 60, said she didn't question the appropriateness of her salary, which made her one of the highest-paid part-time council members in the state.
Former Councilman George Mirabal said he too worked a long, irregular schedule when it came to city affairs.
"I keep hearing time frames over and over again, but there's no clock when you're working on the council," he said Monday. "You're working on the circumstances that are facing you. If a family calls … you don't say, '4 o'clock, work's over.' "
Mirabal, 65, said he often reached out to low-income residents who didn't make it to council meetings, attended workshops to learn how to improve civic affairs and once even made a trip to a San Diego high school to research opening a similar tech charter school in Bell.
"Do you believe you gave everything you could to the citizens of Bell?" asked his attorney, Alex Kessel.
"I'd give more," Mirabal replied.
Both Mirabal and Jacobo testified that not only did they perceive their salaries to be reasonable, but they believed them to be lawful because they were drawn up by the city manager and voted on in open session with the city attorney present.
Mirabal, who once served as Bell's city clerk, even went so far as to say that he was still a firm supporter of the city charter that passed in 2005, viewing it as Bell's "constitution." In a taped interview with authorities, one of Mirabal's council colleagues — Victor Bello — said the city manager told him the charter cleared the way for higher council salaries.
Prosecutors have depicted the defendants as salary gluttons who put their city on a path toward bankruptcy. Mirabal and Jacobo, along with Bello, Luis Artiga, George Cole and Oscar Hernandez, are accused of drawing those paychecks from boards that seldom met and did little work. All face potential prison terms if convicted.
Prosecutors have cited the city's Solid Waste and Recycling Authority as a phantom committee, created only as a device for increasing the council's pay. But defense attorneys said the authority had a very real function, even in a city that contracted with an outside trash company.
Jacobo testified that she understood the introduction of that authority to be merely a legal process and that its purpose was to discuss how Bell might start its own city-run trash service.
A former contract manager for Consolidated Disposal Service testified that Bell officials had been unhappy with the response time to bulky item pickups, terminating their contract about 2005, but that it took about six years to finalize because of an agreement that automatically renewed every year.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller questioned Mirabal about the day shortly after his 2010 arrest that he voluntarily told prosecutors that no work was done on authorities outside of meetings.
Mirabal said that if he had made such a statement, it was incorrect. He said he couldn't remember what was said back then and "might have heed and hawed."
"So it's easy to remember now?" Miller asked.
"Yes, actually."
"More than two years after charges have been filed, it's easier for you to remember now that you did work outside of the meetings for the Public Finance Authority?"
"Yes, sir."
Miller later asked Mirabal to explain a paragraph included on City Council agendas that began with the phrase, "City Council members are like you."
After some clarification of the question, Mirabal answered: "That everybody is equal and that if they look into themselves, they would see us."
corina.knoll@latimes.com
Life imitates film in story of vengeful LA ex-cop
Label: LifestyleLOS ANGELES (AP) — It sounds like the plot line to a movie: He's a former LA cop on a violent, rage-filled rampage who will stop at nothing for revenge.
Instead, police say, it is the latest real-life crime story to grip Southern California, a place where fiction frequently blurs with reality and pop culture often plays larger than the truth.
Christopher Dorner's alleged killing spree hasn't just terrorized a section of the country — it has captured people's imagination and attention.
As of Monday, the triple-murder suspect had more than 70 Facebook fan pages, some with thousands of "likes." Many people were going on those pages to call him an American hero, a man of true conviction who is fighting for his beliefs.
Others praised him for attempting to fight injustice and racism "by any means necessary," quoting the expression popularized by Malcolm X during the 1960s Black Power movement.
Even Charlie Sheen asked the missing suspect to give him a call.
"Let's figure out together how to end this thing," the star of the TV series "Anger Management" says in a 17-second video posted on the website TMZ.com in which he also thanks Dorner for praising him as an actor.
Dorner's shoutout to Sheen, "You're effin awesome," came in a long, rambling manifesto the former cop allegedly posted online in which he accused the Los Angeles Police Department of wrongly firing him, railed against racism and other abuses, and weighed in on his favorite movies and celebrities.
He also vowed vengeance against the police officers he believes wronged him and ruined his reputation. So far, authorities say, he has carried out that threat, killing a Riverside police officer, attempting to kill three other police officers and killing the daughter of a former Los Angeles police captain and her fiance.
And then, just like a scene out of a movie, he vanished Rambo-like, presumably into the deep snow of a sprawling national forest 90 miles east of Los Angeles. Authorities found his burned-out car with weapons inside last week but, so far, no trace of him despite a search coordinated by the FBI, LAPD and other police agencies.
"My first thought was this is the stuff movies are made of," said Karen North, a social media expert at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School. But then her second thought, North said, was that unlike the anti-heroes played to such great effect by Sylvester Stallone in the "Rambo" movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Running Man," Dorner has no redeeming qualities.
"He's killed people who are real people with real families and real friends, and he's terrorized entire communities," she said.
His ability to so far elude one of the largest manhunts in memory, however, has quickly elevated Dorner to folk-hero status among some.
Dorner T-shirts were selling Tuesday for as much as $18. In addition, a photo of a large man who vaguely resembles Dorner and is wearing a T-shirt with the words "Not Chris Dorner, Please Do Not Shoot," has been shared repeatedly on Facebook and Twitter.
So have pictures of Dorner released by police that fans later labeled "American Hero." At least one was altered to resemble Shepard Fairey's famous "Hope" poster of President Barack Obama.
"People, especially Americans, like to identify with anti-heroes and underdogs, and if you take away the fact that he has killed innocent people, people identify with his messages," North said of the attention and sometimes sympathy that Dorner's online rants against racism, injustice and police brutality have brought.
In that way, she said, some will identify him with popular outlaws of the past such as Bonnie and Clyde or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
"But when we do this, we often forget that these people are creating heartbreak for the individuals' lives they affect," North continued.
People watching the case haven't overlooked that Los Angeles police officers who are clearly on edge have mistakenly opened fire on two different vehicles they thought Dorner might be driving.
Since those shootings, one of which wounded a woman and her daughter, some pickups around town now carry handmade signs reading, "Don't Shoot. Not Dorner."
The manifesto linked to Dorner rambles on for more than 10,000 words, spending much of the first half accusing Los Angeles police of wrongly firing him, destroying his reputation and leaving him with no choice but to kill people to bring those actions to the public's attention and restore his name. He also tells of enduring racist taunts during much of his school years, when he says he was often the only black student in his classes.
In the second half, the ex-cop addresses numerous celebrities, including Sheen.
Dorner, who has said he expects to die in a violent confrontation with police, also laments that he likely won't live to see the third "''Hangover" movie. He also advises director Todd Phillips to end the franchise after that film and not cheapen it by milking it for more sequels. He sides with Larry David's character in an episode of the TV comedy "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in which David's black friends tell him white people keep their homes too cold at night.
He also heaps praise on Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Cosby.
Except for Sheen, the celebrities have chosen to ignore Dorner.
"We will look back on this not as somebody with a great cause who called attention to it in a bad way," she said. "This is somebody who created terrible heartbreak."
Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia
Label: HealthAt a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.
A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.
Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.
Katherine Bouton speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.
A transcript of this interview can be found here.
Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.
In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.
“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.
In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.
In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.
Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.
What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.
The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.
Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”
A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.
A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.
Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.
In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.
Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.
Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.
“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.
“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”
Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.
Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 12, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.
Four in 10 Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, study says
Label: BusinessMore than four in 10 Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and nearly one in 10 doesn’t earn enough to pay for essentials, according to a study released Tuesday.
The survey, conducted for the Allstate insurance company by FTI Consulting Inc., underscored the conflicted emotions and attitudes about personal finances among ordinary people.
It showed the challenges that people are facing in a soft economy and troubled labor market, but it also demonstrated that many people make unwise financial decisions even when they know better.
The survey found that 59% of Americans say they generally know how to handle money and make the right financial decisions. But 47% of respondents said they’re saving less money than they should be.
Underscoring the financial dichotomy in the U.S., half of the survey respondents described their financial situation as “excellent” or "good,” while half said it was “fair” or "poor.”
Though 41% live from one paycheck to the next, 8% can't even make it that far, saying they don't have enough to afford everyday essentials.
On the bright side, 82% of people think they’re financially better off than their friends and 52% say they’re better off than when they were growing up.
The survey of 1,000 Americans age 18 and older was conducted in mid-December. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1% in 95 out of 100 cases.
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Follow Walter Hamilton on Twitter @LATwalter
Grammys 2013: Fun., Mumford, Gotye lead a newer generation
Label: WorldGrammy Awards voters gave their top honor to British roots music band Mumford & Sons for their album "Babel" on Sunday at the 55th awards ceremony. Other top honors were distributed to a broad array of younger acts, including indie trio Fun., electronic pop artist Gotye, rapper-R&B singer Frank Ocean and rock group the Black Keys.
"We figured we weren't going to win because the Black Keys have been sweeping up all day — and deservedly so," Mumford & Sons front man Marcus Mumford said after he and his band members strode to the stage at Staples Center in Los Angeles to collect the award from last year's winner, R&B-soul singer Adele.
Pop culture historians may look back at 2013, however, as the year the Grammy Awards gave up its long fight against new forms of music dissemination, embracing songs and videos that consumers soaked up by way of YouTube and other Internet outlets as opposed to purchasing them.
PHOTOS: 2013 Grammy Award winners
"Somebody That I Used to Know," the wildly popular collaboration between Gotye and New Zealand pop singer Kimbra, took the top award presented for a single recording upon being named record of the year, which recognizes performance and record production.
"Somebody…" not only was one of the biggest-selling singles of 2012 but also has notched nearly 400 million views on YouTube, powerfully demonstrating the increasingly vital role of the "broadcast yourself" video Internet phenomenon. Different YouTube posts of Ocean's "Thinking About You" single have totaled nearly 60 million views.
New York indie rock trio Fun. was named best new artist, an acknowledgment of the good-time music the group brought to listeners and viewers last summer largely through its runaway hit single "We Are Young," which has racked up nearly 200 million YouTube views. It also was named song of the year, bringing awards for the group's songwriters, Jack Antonoff, Andrew Dost and Nate Ruess, and collaborator Jeff Bhasker.
GRAMMYS 2013: Full coverage | Pre-show winners | Winners | Ballot
"Everyone can see our faces, and we are not very young — we've been doing this for 12 years," Ruess said as they collected the award.
The song's title could also serve as a theme for the evening, which was dominated by other relatively young acts in the most prestigious Grammy categories.
Singer, rapper and songwriter Ocean emerged the victor in the one category that pitted him directly against real-life rival Chris Brown, as his critically acclaimed solo debut album, "Channel Orange," won the urban contemporary album award. A few minutes later Ocean got a second Grammy with Kanye West, Jay-Z and the Dream in the rap-sung collaboration category for their single "No Church in the Wild."
GRAMMYS 2013: Winners list | Best & Worst | Red carpet | Timeline | Fashion | Highlights
Ocean's tuxedo covered all but his hands, but it appeared as he picked up the urban album award that his left arm remained in a wrist brace he'd exhibited Thursday at rehearsals for this year's broadcast, a remnant of his scuffle last month with Brown over a parking space at a recording studio. Los Angeles Police Department investigators said Ocean informed them that he would not press charges against Brown.
It was the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach who quickly built up steam as the front-runner to dominate this year's awards, taking several statuettes barely an hour into the show, including producer of the year for himself and three with his group including rock performance, rock song and rock album for "El Camino."
The Black Keys homed in on the fundamentals of rock 'n' roll — big guitar riffs, lustful lyrics and a bevy of musical hooks on "El Camino," one of the best reviewed albums of the group's career.
FULL COVERAGE: Grammy Awards 2013
Auerbach picked up another award as producer of the blues album winner, Dr. John's "Locked Down."
Carrie Underwood grabbed the country solo performance Grammy for the title track from her album "Blown Away," which also won the country song award for writers Josh Kear and Chris Tompkins earlier during the pre-telecast ceremony at Nokia Theatre, across the street from Staples Center.
The Zac Brown Band added to its growing place as a new-generation country powerhouse with a win of the country album trophy for its "Uncaged," built on muscular Southern rock guitar riffs, elaborate multipart vocal harmonies and jam-band instrumental excursions.
Last year's big winner, Adele, collected the first statuette of the night for her single "Set Fire to the Rain" in the pop solo performance category.
The show got off to an eye-popping start with a Cirque du Soleil-inspired performance by Taylor Swift of her nominated single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."
The preponderance of youthful acts not broadly known to mainstream TV audiences heightened the use of cross-generational pairings. Rising songwriter and singer Ed Sheeran shared the stage early with veteran Grammy darling Elton John, while Bruno Mars teamed with Sting and Rihanna in a Bob Marley tribute later in the show. Several members of Americana acts, including Alabama Shakes and Mumford & Sons, sang alongside veterans John, Mavis Staples and T Bone Burnett in a salute to drummer Levon Helm of the Band.
But it was the young guns to whom the evening — and perhaps the future — of the Grammy Awards belonged.
The Grammys are determined by about 13,000 voting members of the Recording Academy. The eligibility period for nominated recordings was Oct. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30, 2012. The show aired on CBS live except on the West Coast, which gets a tape delay.
randy.lewis@latimes.com
Twitter: @RandyLewis2
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