There are not only no visible signs of deafness, but because deaf people cannot easily participate they often become hidden and this leads to social isolation.

In a health conscious environment many people walk for exercise. There are things which seem obvious which can make it safer for you to walk. Being alert to your surroundings is extra important.

Being deaf and being Deaf are two different things in our society. When a person goes deaf in later life - where do they fit? If they have their hearing restored through technology are they deaf or hearing?

I meet many people and they often say to me I am ‘lucky’ because I lost my hearing and not my vision. They tell me it would be far easier to live with deafness than blindness. I’ve often wondered why they should think this when the issues of being deaf are complex.

Like any culture (or sub-culture) there are ‘in jokes’ and there is plenty of deaf humour around which play on the differences between hearing and deafness. Through humour we can laugh at ourselves and be laughed at without being ridiculed.

Without language we can’t even think let alone communicate and reason. Education, or rather lack of it, was one of the biggest issues for the pre-lingually deafened.

A discussion on whether discrimination at work exists for the deaf and if so in what forms and how can it be overcome.

What is the Deaf Community? Does a Deaf Culture exist? Are the manual signs Deaf people use really a Language? And are Deaf people “whole persons or simply wounded ears”? These questions have troubled and confused the hearing world for thousands of years.

Even if you have hearing aids or implantable hearing solutions, we are still often deaf at night because we can't keep them on while we sleep.

While tinnitus cannot be cured, current research indicates a break through could be just around the corner. For the moment the best sufferers can do is learn to cope.