As you might recall, Dr. Heller recently attended the 11th Asia Pacific Congress on Deafness 2012, in Singapore.
Dr. Heller provided us with some of his thoughts on the conference which he described as, “a well organized event for health care professionals, audiologists, and researchers for the whole Asian area stretching from the Middle East via India, China, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand. With almost 300 participants.”
While at the conference, Dr. Heller gave two talks, Applications and Roadblocks for Stem Cells in Hearing Loss and Why is Generation of Sensory Hair Cells from Stem Cells so Inefficient?
Dr. Heller further described the event:
The congress was mainly on diagnostics and outcome studies helping professionals to provide better advice to patients and to give them better predictions on the outcome of procedures like cochlear implants. One general discussion was around early implantation of babies, which seems to be highly beneficial to the outcome and is now a goal in a number of countries, such as Australia.
Dr. Heller was impressed by the involved and motivated community in Singapore and by the outreach sessions, organized by the National University of Singapore and by parents of children with hearing loss. The outreach events included plays and music by children with hearing loss. He also shared with us a link to a video competition by NUHS called Sound Out
Speaking out for thehearing impaired:
Imagine A WORLD WITHOUT SOUND.
Now grab a digital camera, phone or video camcorder to tell us what that would be like. Tell a story, shoot a documentary, film artistically or any way you like! In no more than 60 seconds.
There are many moving videos on the website that celebrate sound and living without access to sound. Below is the 1st place winner, a video by Adib Mattar:
NUHS also sponsored a photo competition to celebrate sounds – again, there were many excellent and moving images – below is the 1st place winner, a photo by Arik Chan titled “I can hear LOVE”
.
