Hearing is one of the most often overlooked aspects of a physical exam. Physicians rarely ask patients about their hearing, and most people never think about getting their hearing checked (at least half of all Americans have not had a hearing exam within the past five years). Enter uHear (TM), a hearing test application for the Apple iPhone. The authors claim that the program can identify potential hearing loss, especially among the predominantly young population that uses the device. This is the group most at risk for hearing loss with 84 percent saying they’ve turned up their MP3 players loud enough to block out noise in everyday situations such as at home, on the street, or while on transportation. This is enough to cause long term hearing loss. Currently, it is believed that there are at least 30 million Americans with hearing loss and a great many of them are under the age of 35. Read more.
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Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.