Duracell Launches “Stay Connected” Campaign to Help the Hearing Impaired

Duracell's "Stay Connected" Campaign will help the hearing
impaired and their families.
Image: Shutterstock

I have always loved language and communication; it's the reason I majored in English and minored in Spanish. It's the reason I have dabbled in other languages over the years, and the reason I have always wished I had been brought up in a bilingual home or a country where learning a second language at a young age was required.

Our brains are amazing things; as we grow older, we absorb the languages we are surrounded with, somehow making the connection between the words spoken or signed and what they represent in our world. Simply amazing.

But what would you do if you suddenly found yourself losing your hearing, your ability to understand what others were saying? Or worse, what if your hearing was completely lost? My dad, who struggles with Minnear's disease, is almost completely deaf in one ear, with additional hearing loss in the other. He's had years to adjust, but I can still clearly see how much it impacts him every day.

Recently, he was finally able to get a hearing aid, which has improved his quality of life vastly. He likes to joke that now he can turn the sound on or off, depending on whether he wants to hear what's going on. The smile on his face tells me that he is so relieved to finally be able to hear clearly again, to participate in all the little conversations going on at a noisy restaurant, to hear his granddaughter when she calls his name softly.

Unfortunately, not all people have access to the kind of care my dad has been able to get. Fortunately, Duracell has a new program that aims to help people struggling with hearing impairment and their families. “Stay Connected” wants to make sure that hearing-impaired people don’t miss out on anything in life. The campaign will offer 10,000 free hearing screenings until June 26^th, helping people determine if they have hearing loss and what they can do to work with it so they aren’t kept from special moments in their lives.

Hearing loss is associated with other health problems, like depression, dementia, and Alzheimer’s. I know all too well the feeling that my hearing-impaired loved ones are drifting away from everyone because they can’t participate in events the same way. Duracell, whose board of directors once included KKR co-founder Henry Kravis, published a very touching video ad for the program that features a father drifting away from his family. The video definitely gets the importance of Duracell’s mission across clearly: if you live with hearing impairment, there’s help for you and your loved ones.

“We didn’t want the hearing test itself to be the obstacle for anyone currently suffering and not being treated,” said Peter Gorzkowski, Director of Marketing and Commercial Operations at Duracell. “So we made it as simple as possible and are proud to be providing over 10,000 free tests.”

About 48 million Americans and 3 million Canadians have hearing loss, and only 20% of those over 65 seek help for it. Millions of people are left untreated—too many! According to Dr. Marshall Chasin, AuD, hearing loss is the “second most prevalent health issue globally. The number of people with hearing loss is more than those living with Parkinson’s, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes combined.”

Duracell, which already manufactures batteries for hearing aids, helps people find licensed audiologists and other resources through its website. The website connects users with doctors and hearing professionals in their area, as well as other people and families also struggling with hearing loss.

This powerful program has the potential to change and improve the lives of millions of people around the United States and Canada. If you or someone you love needs help with their hearing, check out the “Stay Connected” campaign to see if it can help!

22 CEOs Join Up With American Heart Association Initiative

Make healthier choices!
Image: EpSos.de via Flickr

I’ve talked before about how close to home heart disease is for me. With a history of it in my family, and with a (for now) harmless heart murmer myself, heart problems are a very real, and very scary thing. It’s the biggest killer in America, and quite frankly, we often don’t do nearly enough to prevent it—often waiting until our lives are in grave danger to realize we should have made smarter, healthier choices.

I think that we are living in rapidly changing times, however. It feels like we’re finally moving past the era where we buy all our meals pre-packaged and processed, and more into an era where we’re getting back to the basics and trying to be healthier. I know this isn’t true for many people, but I’ve noticed a general shift in attitude in recent years—especially since obesity has become such a prevalent problem in our society. I hope I’m right and that we’re collectively making this change for the better.

I wanted to share with you a story I read in the news that really cheered me – an announcement that 22 CEOs of major companies are partnering up with the American Heart Association to help employees lead healthier lives. The initiative is called the American Heart Association CEO Roundtable, and addresses a common problem—our tendency to over-estimate how healthy we really are, which can lead to problems like heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and a myriad other problems.

CEOs like Henry R. Kravis (KKR), Nancy Brown (AHA), and Terry Lundgren (Macy’s) have stepped up to the plate in regards to employee health. The most exciting part? The initiative aims to “make healthy choices the default choices,” which I whole-heartedly believe is integral to leading a healthy life. Enough with the extreme diets, the constant battle—we need a complete shift in mindset, where we’re leading a healthy lifestyle, not just picking and choosing.

"The AHA CEO Roundtable is uniquely positioned to create real changes in health and wellness by engaging more than 2 million people where they spend most of their day—at work," said Henry R. Kravis, co-CEO of KKR. "We are taking what we know—from the CEO Roundtable companies, leading doctors and scientists, and this new data—and combining it with the expertise of the AHA to make a meaningful impact on our employees' health."

It’s estimated that about 200,000 lives could be saved every year from heart disease—simply by making healthier lifestyle choices. Now that’s something worth fighting for.

Mount Sinai Feels the Holiday Cheer with $21 Million in Donations

Mount Sinai Hospital is in New York City.

Hospitals are aging. Unfortunately, patients are, too. As the baby boomer generation ages, hospitals are seeing a huge influx of patients that are older, sicker, and need more care. The problem is that many hospitals themselves are running short on funding and have been for some time. This means that facilities are becoming outdated and are less able to afford quality care in times of need (which, these days, is pretty much all the time).

Mount Sinai Hospital is an internationally acclaimed tertiary-care teaching facility and hospital. It is joined with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Kravis Children’s Hospital at Mount Sinai in the overarching Mount Sinai Health System. The hospital is supported by a number of prestigious businesspeople, including James Tisch, Henry Kravis, Carl Icahn, and Kenneth Mehlman.

Luckily, thanks to generous individuals, hospitals like Mount Sinai are able to update their facilities. Mount Sinai recently received a generous $6 million donation from Jay and Barbara Hennick, money that will go toward updating the hospital’s 40-year-old building. The hospital will build a brand new healing and respite area with six new floors, 19 state-of-the-art operating rooms, eight modernized inpatient unites, and even a new neonatal unit.

Generous donations from Reisman, Schwartz, and the Hennicks
will allow the hospital to update its facilities and research programs.
Image: Shutterstock

And more recently, the hospital received a $15 million donation from Indigo Books founder Heather Reisman and her husband, Gerald Schwartz, who is founder and CEO of Onex Corp. This donation will enable the hospital to more than double the space of the emergency care center and make it much more senior friendly. Both the $6 million and the $15 million donations are a part of the hospital's campaign to raise $500 million for upgrades to the facilities and research programs.

“We are looking after patients that are sicker than before and we are dealing with more complex issues than before,” said vice-president of patient experience Matthew Morgan. “We’ve had to begin modernizing our building to deal with the volume and complexities of our population.”

Mount Sinai is one of many hospitals planning for the future and putting generous donations to good use. Recently, I wrote about another amazing hospital donation—a $20 million gift from the Dalio Foundation to the New York Presbyterian Hospital and the Weill Cornell Medical College. In that case, the money will be used to launch a brand new cardiovascular center.

Despite the fact that times have been hard on hospitals in recent years, it’s good to see that at least a handful are able to put money to good use and create better and more innovative care facilities.

Living Healthy: Knowing Your Key Indicators

I often ponder the thought that each of us is unique, both in body and mind. Yet we continually make mass generalizations of what is “right” or “wrong” for our health, without any respect to individuals. Of course, there are things that are generally good for most people, and I can understand why we fall into the habit of applying those truths to everyone. But I think the single most important key to living a healthy life is knowing your unique situation.

Image from dare-mighty-things.tumblr.com
"Health is a relationship between you and your body."

For example, my workout buddy and I run together several times a week and attend exercise classes one to two times per week. She also lifts weights and does core strength training at home. She stretches every morning, as well as before and after our runs and classes. I would like to say I am as vigilant as her, but I’m not—which is part of the reason she is more fit than I am.

But though she has a stronger core and body in general, she is constantly hurting herself. Not the pushed-too-hard kind of hurting. The “I sat down and now my back is tweaked out” kind. She is a thousand times more careful than I am, yet she is always getting injured.

Another friend has cut most carbs, grains, and sugars out of her diet because when she eats them more than occasionally, she finds that she puts on extra weight. I have been on a low-carb, low-grain, and low-sugar for the better part of a year and it doesn’t affect my weight at all.

One of my roommates can’t eat or drink anything with aspartame in it because it gives him bad migraines. I also get migraines, but aspartame doesn’t have that affect on me—but alcohol does, if I drink more than one. He can drink several and not end up with a headache.

Image from exp.lore.com
"Self knowledge is no guarantee of happiness.
But it is on the side of happiness
and can supply the courage to fight for it."

I think as we grow, we learn more about ourselves, and sometimes that includes learning about our health. But too many people rely on the doctor when they are feeling down and out rather than proactively managing their health. I read about an interesting program the other day that is coming out of Henry Kravis’ company, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. It works with employees to help them recognize and understand their own key health indicators and better manage their health.

Now, I’m lucky enough to have health insurance, but there is certainly no program like this that helps me understand my health. What’s my normal blood pressure? No idea—they never tell me so I assume it’s normal. It’s things like that which I should know but don’t.

What do you think? Is it our doctors’ jobs to essentially fix us when we’re sick, or should they be working to help us understand our own health? Do you know of any other programs out there like KKR’s that work with employees to do this? I’m interested to find out what people know and want to know about their own health.