14 November 2018

Lost at sea
Andy King's life changed with one punch. He lost his hearing
and his hopes of becoming a pro-surfer. This is how he was
lifted up by his surfing mates, including Mick Fanning.

Hearing aids can’t help everyone

Hearing aids can make sounds louder which helps a lot of people
but with some types of hearing loss, sounds can also be muffled
or garbled. Cochlear implants work differently, by stimulating
the hearing nerves directly to provide access to sound.

10 years of service to teenagers with deafness

The hearing health sector gathered in Sydney last night to mark
the 10th anniversary of Hear For You.

New hearing loss treatment

Sensory hearing loss will affect one billion people worldwide by
2050. Australian researchers believe restorative drugs can be
loaded into the tiny nanoparticles and delivered to the inner ear.

World Health Organization declares Australia

free of disease that causes deafness
Rubella, also known as German measles, had been eliminated in
Australia, according to the international health wathcdog.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to them
and their cultures, and to elders past, present and future. We acknowledge the challenge to overcome the high levels of ear health issues among first Australians.
Lost at sea
Andy King's life changed with one punch. He lost not only his hearing, but his hopes of becoming
a pro-surfer. This is how he was lifted up by his surfing mates, including Mick Fanning.

The professional surfer was riding high in April 2004. He'd just made history with the highest
two-wave score in the world and after eight years of slugging it out with all the other wannabees
in the qualifying series, he was finally on track to reach his dream — a spot on the World Tour
where his mate Mick Fanning was dominating.

But it all came crashing down when King and his now-wife Nadene were walking home from a
night out celebrating in Cronulla with his surfing mates. It was 2:00am and across the street, a
Saturday night drunk hollered out to them. The couple can't recall the details of what was said.
"It was just a silly comment", Nadene remembers.

One that should have been easy to ignore. But for King, a switch flicked in his head and he
crossed the street to confront the group of men.

It was a decision that almost ruined his life. For a while, it did.

Video: One punch changed everything for Andy King. (ABC News) http://www.newslocker.com/en-
au/sport/sport-news-australia/how-andy-stayed-afloat-after-his-surfing-dreams-were-silenced/view/

Today, King has a relaxed approach to everything he does, from coaching this year's world
number 2, Julian Wilson, to being a hands-on dad to Sunny, 7, and Florence, 2. But as a young,
up-and-comer on the surfing circuit, King was known as a hot-head and a risk-taker.

King got his start as a five-year-old grommet with the Cronulla Sharks Board Riders Club and
surfing soon became his refuge, an escape from the menacing presence of his "deadbeat dad".
Nigel King was an alcoholic with violent tendencies for as long as Andy could remember. From
the age of 12, King slept with a knife under his pillow.
"As soon as I got big enough and strong enough I started attacking him when he would threaten
my mum and my sisters," King says.

The first chance he got, King left home for the World Surf League (WSL) Qualifying Tour. The
love of competitive surfing and the brotherly friendships that went with it became his foundation.
For the first time he felt free. But King would still turn to anger and fists in an instant if he or a
mate was challenged.

"If you were ever threatened, it was always do a tackle. It was born and bred in me."

Plunged into silence

In April 2004, King, 27, had been on tour for eight years on the qualifying series when he made
that fateful decision to take on the heckler on Cronulla's main street. A group of men were yelling
out comments about King's now-wife Nadene and for King it was the final straw. He says he
snapped and went into "fight mode".

"I got kicked, and I went down to the ground, and I got back up. There was a semi circle of his
friends around," King says of the main heckler. "He jumped over Nadene's shoulder and hit me
when I wasn't watching. Then I was unconscious."

The scuffle was brief and ended when King's head struck the pavement with a sickening crack. By
the time he came to, he was in "a really weird space". I had no perception of height or where my
head was. You know those dreams where you're falling? I felt like I was suspended in space, but
my whole head was spinning.

Nadene remembers the look on her boyfriend's face as he was placed on a stretcher and loaded
into an ambulance. "I could just see from the fear in his eyes that something was wrong," she
says.

King nearly died that night from a brain injury. Later, a doctor would ask what he did for a living.
"Well you won't be doing that anymore," the doctor said when he discovered his patient was a
pro-surfer.

King had suffered catastrophic damage to his eardrums and cochlear, leaving him almost
completely deaf and without equilibrium. He had to learn to stand and walk again. He was
devastated to learn surfing was out of the question. King tried to swim but without equilibrium
swam down instead of up.

For a man whose nickname was "Turtle" because of his affinity with the water and his clumsiness
on land, it was devastating. Some doctors said he'd need to go on the pension, get a disability
sticker, or even give up his driver's licence. King lost much of his speech and was repeatedly
embarrassed when he vocalised private thoughts aloud without realising. "I was stripped of
everything," he says.
Now 42, King confesses he plotted revenge on the man who punched him who was convicted of
grievous bodily harm and given 500 hours of community service. But it was the "brother bonds"
with Fanning and the Cronulla board-riding community that brought King back to what he loved.
Every day, friends would help with his rehab, walking him up and down the Cronulla esplanade
and over the rocks to improve his balance. Others eased him back onto a board and onto the
waves. Without hearing and equilibrium, it was a completely new experience.

It was purely now about vibrations and the feeling in the ocean," King remembers. He describes
his plunge into silence as a "forced meditation". "You just go over and rerun so many stories," he
says.

King realised his own quick temper was partly responsible for his injury and that unless he
changed course he was destined to keep repeating the patterns and behaviours of his life.
Fanning believes the incident that took his friend's hearing "woke a lot of people up" in the surfing
fraternity.

"It changed a lot of people in our circle [about] not reacting to those sorts of things," he says.
"Sometimes just letting go because you know it's going to be safer."

Back to the beach

Photo: Andy King in action in the surf. (Supplied: John Veage/ St George & Sutherland Shire Leader)

Six months after his injury, King's mates and some of the world's best surfers, including Fanning,
Mark Occhilupo and Kelly Slater, helped raise money to pay for a cochlear implant to improve his
hearing.

They donated their time and auctioned items such as their old boards, eventually pulling in
$105,000. And they dragged King into a sufficiently optimistic headspace to proceed with the
operation.
King tried to get his old life back. He got an injury wildcard and returned to the world qualifying
series, but it was tough. He couldn't wear his implant in the ocean so he couldn't hear the hooter,
or the scores, or the commentators. He found it difficult to read the waves without hearing them.

"I was stinking so bad I sold all my boards," King says. Defeated, he chucked it all in.

Fanning came to the rescue, connecting King to a job as a mentor for young surfers with the Red
Bull circuit. King spent seven years with Red Bull, five of them on and off in Los Angeles
developing training programs for young surfers before taking on the role of national coach for
Surfing Australia based at the Hurley High Performance Centre on the Gold Coast. He worked as
a support coach for Fanning.

Photo: Both King and Fanning credit their mateship for helping them through their toughest times.
(Australian Story: Anthony Sines)

As King found himself, he was then able to help his mate, Mick Fanning. In 2009, Fanning had
already won one world championship but was floundering under the pressure and weight of his
own expectations. Out on tour, King could see his friend was struggling.

"He was always ahead of himself, always looking for points. He was training like an Olympic
athlete, but he wasn't enjoying himself," King says of Fanning. "Surfing shouldn't be a chore."

King and some other trusted mates just had to pick the right time to sit Fanning down and remind
him of the reason why they surfed. It was a love of nature and the sea. After their sit-down,
Fanning went on to win his second world championship.

Today, King works full time as a professional surfing coach on the world championship tour with
Julian Wilson, who is one of three surfers battling it out for the world title in December in Hawaii.

Last year he was fitted with a waterproof housing for his cochlear implant. For the first time in 14
years, he took to the ocean and could hear the waves he was riding. It was life-changing,
returning him to feeling at one with the waves.
Photo: King is now coaching world number 2, Julian Wilson. (Instagram: Boskophoto)

King has taken years to shake off the anger and aggression of his father to become the man he
wants to be. In many ways, his friend Mick Fanning has been a better role model to him than his
own father. King has always admired Fanning's ability to come back from adversity, including
serious injury, the loss of two brothers and, in 2015, an attack by a great white shark while
competing in South Africa.

"The way he lives [has] shaped the way that I act and the things that I do," King says. "Without
that … I'm not sure where I'd be."

Photo: Anthony and Nadene King with their children Sunny and Flo. (Australian Story: Anthony Sines)

Credits
Reporting: Kristine Taylor
Additional writing: Stephanie Wood
Photography: Anthony Sines, John Veage, St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, BoskoPhoto.
From ABC News and Newslocker, http://www.newslocker.com/en-au/sport/sport-news-australia/how-
andy-stayed-afloat-after-his-surfing-dreams-were-silenced/view/
Infection every expectant mother feared 'eradicated' in
Australia
Aisha Dow writing for the Sydney Morning Herald

An infection once feared by pregnant women has been all but wiped out in Australia thanks to a
vaccine that has been a fixture of childhood vaccinations for almost three decades.

The World Health Organisation recently declared that rubella,

also known as German measles, had been eliminated in Australia,
according to its official threshold.

Nationally there have been just eight reported cases so far this
year (including two in Victoria and one in NSW) and they were
most likely as a result of people bringing in the illness from
overseas.

“The science is in and the medical experts’ advice is absolute -

vaccinations save lives and protect lives,” said Federal Health
Minister Greg Hunt.

The trickle of cases today is a far cry from the epidemics of the Image by Shutterstock
late 1950s and early 1990s, which saw thousands of people
infected, and resulted in stillbirths and birth defects that had life-long impacts.

Rubella often causes a rash and mild symptoms such as nausea, a low fever and conjunctivitis.
For some, the illness is so innocuous people do not realise they have it, but the infection remains
extremely dangerous for pregnant women, especially in the first trimester.

In about 85 per cent of cases it causes miscarriage, stillbirth or other serious side-effects to the
developing foetus that results in the baby being born deaf, developmentally delayed or struggling
with heart defects.

“There are still people living with deafness that contracted it from rubella,” said Australia’s chief
medical officer Professor Brendan Murphy. “The deafness is permanent and it’s by far the
commonest abnormalities.”

Professor Elizabeth Elliott from the University of Sydney said when she first started working in
paediatrics almost four decades ago she would see children born deaf and with eye and heart
problems as a result of rubella exposure during early pregnancy.

“The other really concerning thing is some of these children had microcephaly or small brain,
hence were developmentally delayed. They were children whose mother might have had a rash
or fever during pregnancy, which was often quite trivial.”
Professor Elliott said the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit had been monitoring congenital
rubella infections since 1993 and identified 60 cases in that time, but none in recent years. She
said it was great news that Australia had all but eliminated rubella, but it was also important that
immigrants were still screened to ensure they had received vaccinations and pregnant women
who had come from at-risk countries were also monitored.

The rubella vaccine was first rolled out in Australia in 1971 for schoolgirls. It was added to the
childhood vaccination program in 1989 and is now given with an injection combined with measles
and mumps at one year and then 18 months.

Professor Murphy said while there were still the occasional cases of rubella identified in Australia,
including 10 in 2017, the infections were mostly not caught locally.

“If you come into an antivaxer community there is always a risk you could have a bit of local
spread… but we don’t have any sustained transmission in our community.”
https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/infection-every-expectant-mother-feared-eradicated-in-australia-20181030-p50czm.html

Photo: Hear For You chair Kim Jones, CEO David Brady, John Howard and Hear For You founder and
director Olivia Andersen.

Australia’s 25th Prime Minister John Howard OM AC was a guest of Hear For You when it
celebrated ten years of providing programs and workshops that give teenagers with deafness the
chance to pick up new skills and strategies and connect with mentors. https://hearforyou.com.au/
Maybe there are new hearing loss treatment using
nanoparticles
By Jessica Longbottom for ABC News

Photo: Jim Findley says potential nanoparticle treatment for his hearing loss would be a boon.

Scientists from Melbourne's Bionics Institute at the University of Melbourne believe they can use
nanotechnology to deliver restorative drugs to deep within the ear to sufferers of neural hearing
loss.

It is the most common form of deafness, affecting people as they age, or if they've been exposed
to prolonged periods of loud noise in industries such as music, mining, construction,
manufacturing or the military.

Jim Findley is one of millions who could benefit from the research. When the former US Army
infantry officer's ears started ringing for three days straight, he knew something was seriously
wrong. He had just completed a period of combat in Afghanistan, and he thought the cacophony
of sounds on the battlefield — including gunfire, artillery and his comrades shouting at one
another — had taken their toll.

"When the action starts, it's overwhelming to the senses. The light can be blinding, the noise can
be deafening, and then everything breaks loose," he said.

Like many defence force personnel around the world, it was his hearing that was damaged.
Permanently. He has had partial hearing loss in his left ear for about a decade.
Isolation of hearing loss
Lead medical researcher Andrew Wise said the nanoparticle treatment currently being tested on
animals would especially help people suffering from sensory hearing loss, which occurs when the
nerve connections to the inner ear become damaged. It is the most common disability in
developed nations according to the Bionics Institute, and is on track to affect one billion people
worldwide by 2050. Sufferers wear hearing aids and there is no treatment.

Melbourne's Epworth Hospital ear, nose and throat surgeon, Sherryl Wagstaff, said hearing loss
makes people isolate themselves.

"They don't want to go out, they don't want to socialise and as we know there are now links to
dementia as a result of it," Dr Wagstaff said.

Putting a sprinkle into a nanoparticle

The researchers believe restorative drugs can be "loaded" into the nanoparticles, about half a
millimetre in diameter and smaller than a cake sprinkle, or a "hundred and thousand", and
delivered to the inner ear.

Associate Professor Wise said the properties of the particles were "remarkable" and he likened
then to volcanic rock.

"They're very porous, and that property enables us to load very high levels of the growth factors
(or drugs) into these particles, and then these growth factors come out of the particles quite
slowly after many months," he said.

Although drugs that can repair inner-ear nerve damage are already available, no-one has yet been
able to find a way to get them to the inner ear in the quantity required to work. If trials are
successful, researchers said the technique could eventually replace hearing aids in millions of
people around the world.

"People (who) have problems with hearing, problems with processing sound, information, in
challenging environments … where they can hear but have difficulty interpreting speech, that
population is probably the target population, at least initially," Associate Professor Wise said.

The treatment is still a few years away from human trials, but the US Department of Defence is so
excited by the prospect it has committed $1.1 million to the research.

Like many defence forces around the world, payouts to servicemen and women who have
suffered hearing loss due to exposure to noise make-up the majority of compensation payouts.

For veteran Jim Findley, it offers new hope. "Mate, it would be brilliant," he said with a smile.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-08/nanoparticle-treatment-possible-for-common-form-of-hearing-loss/10477498
International Deafness Symbol
The International Symbol for Deafness identifies places that have
consistent, functioning hearing augmentation services.

Deafness Forum of Australia is the registered owner of the Symbol as a

trademark in Australia.

Becoming an approved user of the Symbol is a simple and quick process

that begins with sending us an email to hello@deafnessforum.org.au

Providers of signage, advice and technical services should make sure their clients are aware of the
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https://www.deafnessforum.org.au/resources/international-deafness-symbol/

Australian Organ Donor Register

The Australian Organ Donor Register is the only national register for people to record their
decision about becoming an organ and tissue donor for transplantation after death.

Registering is voluntary and people have complete choice over which organs and tissues they wish
to donate. If a person does not want to become an organ and tissue donor, they can register
their decision not to donate on the Donor Register.

Registering your consent on the Donor Register is a good way to record your decision about how
you wish your organs and tissues to be treated after your death. Please note that your next of kin
will always be asked to confirm your donation decision, and agree to donation before it can
proceed.

https://www2.medicareaustralia.gov.au/pext/registerAodr/Pages/DonorRegistration.jsp
Advertisement

Join a discussion about hearing loss and study design

You are invited to participate in a study that explores the perspectives of potential cochlear
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This study by the Macquarie University in Sydney aims to provide results that will improve
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Want to be involved? Contact Dr Emilie Auton, the study researcher, emilie.auton@mq.edu.au

Cochlear Implants support over half a million people
around the world
Content supplied by SCIC Cochlear Implant Program, an RIDBC service.

Cochlear implants have been in use for over 35 years - today, over half a million people worldwide
are using cochlear implants to support their hearing loss.

Hearing aids can’t help everyone. Hearing aids can make sounds louder which helps a lot of
people with hearing loss, however they can’t help everyone. With some types of hearing loss,
sounds can also be muffled or garbled. This type of hearing loss can make it difficult to interpret
the meaning of speech and sounds, and this is where cochlear implants may work better.
Cochlear implants work differently, by stimulating the hearing nerves directly to provide access to
sound.

For people of all ages. People of any age can receive and use cochlear implants for the first
time, including children in their first year of life, and adults of any age including those who are in
their late senior years (90+).

Designed to last a lifetime. Cochlear implants are designed to last a lifetime and are easily
upgraded as the speech processing technology improves without the need for further surgery.

Recipient Info and Expectations. Every person is unique, with different prior hearing
experiences and medical histories, so everyone responds differently to what they hear with a
cochlear implant at first. For some it can be an immediate improvement, with others it can take
time and the support of your audiology team to get comfortable with using a cochlear implant to
its full benefit. Expectations and outcomes can be more accurately discussed during a cochlear
implant assessment prior to receiving the implant.

Surgical information
The procedure generally takes only a few hours. Most people return home the following day. The
procedure is relatively simple, with a small incision made behind the ear to insert the implant.
Your surgeon will be able to discuss all aspects to consider depending on your individual
circumstances and choice of device.

Some routine MRI scans can still be undertaken after receiving a cochlear implant depending on
your choice of device. If a high-resolution MRI scan or a brain scan is needed, some cochlear
implants are suitable with the magnet in place, and others may be designed so that the magnet
can be temporarily removed with minor surgery.

Made for an active and connected lifestyle

Cochlear implants are designed to provide access to everyday sounds in life – but they are also
focused on keeping people connected whether that’s enabling hearing in groups, listening to
music, talking on the phone, swimming, or playing sports. There’s a range of devices and
accessories available to tailor to different needs and interests.

A range of funding options

Some people worry that getting a cochlear implant may be very expensive. The costs associated
are made up of a few components which are totally covered under private health insurance or the
public health system in Australia.

SCIC Cochlear Implant Program, an RIDBC service is a not-for-profit provider that bulk-bills
through Medicare for all ongoing supporting audiology services, further reducing any cost to
people who need cochlear implants.

https://www.ridbc.org.au/scic-cochlear-implant-program

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