Monthly Archives: October 2015

Audiology Online Webinar: ‘A Parent’s Perspective in Decision Making in Bone Anchored Hearing Systems’

Last week, Oticon Medical and Audiology Online hosted a webinar to provide an inside look into the perspective and decision-making process of parents with children who can benefit from bone anchored hearing systems.

The webinar featured Melissa Tumblin and Ann Pipes, both mothers to children who use bone anchored hearing systems. Melissa’s daughter Alyssa (Ally) wears the Oticon Medical Ponto Plus on a soft band. Ann’s son, Winslow, made his own decision to have surgery to wear his bilateral Ponto Pluses on abutments as implants. Melissa is also the Founder and Executive Director of Ear Community, and Ann is a founding member of Little Ears Hearing Center, a non-profit pediatric audiology clinic in Louisville, KY.

Melissa and Ann shared their stories, and in doing so the audience learned:

  • How to identify the parent consideration process in selecting a bone anchored hearing system for a child
  • The various types of FM systems used by most schools
  • How Ann and Melissa learned of bone anchored hearing systems and the products their children tried before the Ponto system

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Here’s How Ponto Users Show Their Advocacy with Today’s Top Online Tools (Plus: Meet the Winner of the Patient Advocacy Contest)

At our Patient Advocacy Workshop this year, we left our advocates with a challenge: utilize the tools we shared to create a designed social media post or video that expresses how you feel about your Ponto.

We were so incredibly impressed as the submissions rolled in. Here are some of the submissions from our incredibly creative community members—including the first place winning submission below!

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Giving Sound to a 6-year-old Girl in South Africa

Think about how many times in a given day someone says your name, and you instinctively turn to address them.

Lebo Pretty Ndladla, a 6-year-old South African native with Microtia and Atresia and Treacher Collins Syndrome, had never had that experience until recently. Lebo’s mother, Xolisile Mgwenya, came across a nonprofit organization in South Africa called the Give An Ear Foundation. Give An Ear helps children with Microtia and Atresia. The foundation worked with Lebo and her mother and got in touch with the South African Association for Audiologists (SAAA) and worked with Ear Community, here in the United States, to arrange for free hearing tests and programming of donated bone anchored hearing devices.

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