Women’s Wellness brings music to the ears

International music and noise exposure expert Marshall Chasin, Au.D., ’03, M.Sc., Reg. CASLPO, Aud (C), shared his knowledge with 122 attendees of the Women’s Wellness program’s annual community luncheon March 1 at the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM), in Phoenix, Ariz.

A warm sunny day, friendly faces, and a delicious organic lunch welcomed the crowd as they arrived at the recently opened, one-year-old MIM. The outside lunch was followed by Dr. Chasin’s presentation, “Hear the Music,” where he discussed hearing loss prevention and the importance of appreciating and not taking advantage of music.

“It turns out that humans are wonderful at discerning changes in pitch and we can certainly tell when people are off key,” said Dr. Chasin. “However, we are quite poor discriminators of intensity. It is intensity that eventually causes hearing loss damage. Rock and roll needs to be loud, but it does not need to be intense.”

Dr. Chasin’s presentation covered hearing protection, moderation, and some tricks to delude the musician and the listener such as lowering your iPod volume and obtaining special noise-reducing headphones.

Among the Women’s Wellness crowd sat ATSU audiology faculty, staff, and students.  ASHS Dean Barbara Maxwell, P.T., D.P.T., ’06, MSc, Cert THE, and Audiology Chair and Associate Professor Tabitha Parent Buck, Au.D., gave a few remarks to the crowd, informing them of the Arizona School of Health Sciences, and more specifically the Audiology program.

“The Women’s Wellness Luncheon provided an excellent opportunity to inform attendees about the prevention of hearing loss as well as some key points regarding the Audiology programs at ATSU,” said Dr. Parent Buck. “I was honored to be a part of this event and happy to see audiology students and faculty networking with the community members during the event.”

The event also symbolized the changing of the guards for the co-chairs of the Women’s Wellness program. Founding co-chairs, Kim Hochschuler and Christine Muldoon welcomed Amanda Weaver and Nancy Dean as incoming co-chairs for the program. Hochschuler and Muldoon were presented with their own personal framed copies of “The Healing Touch” painted by DeLoss McWilliams.

Guests received ATSU bags filled with the included items: Dr. Chasin’s book, “Hear the Music,” informational sheets on hearing, an ATSU calendar, a stress relief ball in the shape of an ear, and their own set of ear plugs.

“Hear the Music” event sponsors included Women’s Wellness member Randy Kendrick, Scottsdale Healthcare, Eytomic Research, and Dr. Chasin.

Sounding off: more about Dr. Chasin

Dr. Chasin is an audiologist, director of Auditory Research at the Musicians’ Clinics of Canada in Toronto, coordinator of research at the Canadian Hearing Society, and director of research at ListenUp Canada. He also is an associate professor at the School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, faculty of Health Sciences (Audiology) at the University of Western Ontario, adjunct professor at the University of Toronto (in Linguistics) specializing in Acoustic Phonetics, and an adjunct professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

Dr. Chasin has won several awards, including the 1999 Honours of the Association from the Ontario Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists; 2009 President’s Award for outstanding contributions to the field from the Canadian Academy of Audiology; 2003 Professional Leadership Award for clinical and research work with musicians and performing artists from the Audiology Foundation of America.