Common misconceptions about hearing loss
Hillary Lewis,
Audiologist
Studies show that one in 10 individuals – about 28 million people in North America alone – have some hearing loss, and about 95 percent of them would benefit from amplification. Unfortunately, despite the well-documented benefits hearing aids can provide, only about 10 percent will wear them. Listed below are some common reasons why people don’t take advantage of the opportunities available to improve their hearing:
"I can hear you. I just miss some parts of what you said.”
For most adults, hearing loss doesn’t manifest itself as a loss of volume, but rather a loss of clarity. Very commonly, adults loose the ability to hear certain, high-pitched parts of speech. This can result in speech sounding garbled, muffled, or unclear. This difficulty can become even more problematic in environments with even slight background noise.
“I don’t need a hearing aid. You just need to speak louder.”
Hearing loss is generally a very gradual process. If someone woke up one day with a moderate hearing loss, that person would be calling a physician for an immediate appointment. Because it is usually a slowly progressing loss, a person has a long time to become acclimated to less than optimal hearing abilities. Therefore, the loss is often perceived as less severe than it actually is. In reality, seven years is the average time that lapses between when a person first notices a hearing decline to when the loss is finally addressed!
“Only old people have hearing aids.”
In the past 30 years, the percentage of Americans between the ages of 46 to 64 with a noise-induced hearing loss has increased by 26 percent. In fact, one study shows that six out of 10 college freshmen are affected by noise-induced hearing loss. While our grandparents’ generation was prone to noise-induced hearing loss due to their occupations and workplaces, today’s young adults are suffering hearing loss as a result of recreational noise exposure, such as personal music systems.
In addition, hearing loss can be frustrating, isolating, and can even lead to depression. People with hearing loss often refrain from attending social events and family parties due to their inability to hear conversation. They report missing the punch lines to jokes, or responding inappropriately to questions posed. Unfortunately, because of these mistakes, people with hearing loss are often incorrectly pegged as also having a cognitive or mental decline. In short, the hearing loss, not the hearing aid, can make a person look old.
“Hearing aids are way too expensive”
The purchase of hearing aids can be a substantial financial investment. There are, however, a wide range of variables that factor into the cost of the hearing aid, such as size and level of technology. Hearing aids can range from a basic instrument to a more sophisticated, high-end level. By working with an audiologist, a person can learn about all the various aspects of amplification and determine the best fit for his or her lifestyle.
In most all cases, the cost of not obtaining hearing aids is often greater than the monetary amount. At a recent lecture, one woman stated she had hearing aids because there was no way she was going to miss the laughter of her five beautiful grandchildren.
“My neighbor has hearing aids, and he just keeps them in a drawer.”
Hearing aids are part of a rehabilitation process. At first, people with hearing aids hear sounds in the environment, which have not been audible to them in quite some time. That can be odd and overwhelming. With continued use, however, those environmental sounds will become part of normal life, just as they are for people with normal hearing. This takes time. In most cases, simple and additional hearing aid adjustments can help a person acclimate to the noisy world around them. Working with an audiologist can help people transition from a life with hearing loss to a life with hearing aids.
Hearing aids will not restore one’s hearing back to normal, but their benefit can be extraordinary.
Hillary Lewis
Audiologist
About the columnist:
Hilary Lewis is an audiologist at the Masonicare Health Center, in Wallingford.
Submitted by Jeff Kurz on Tue, 05/12/2009 - 15:47
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