What can you do to help someone who suffers from a hearing loss?

If someone you know suffers from hearing loss, you already know it's a challenging time for everyone close to that person including family, friends, colleagues and coworkers.

Sometimes, the change can be so gradual or subtle that you're not sure whether it's actually a hearing loss. Unlike many conditions, hearing loss is often hard to detect in its early stages.

Common Signs of Hearing Loss

Some of the most common indicators of hearing loss include:

• turning up the volume of the TV or radio
• problems hearing the doorbell or the telephone ringing
• difficulty hearing people calling and talking from behind or in another room
• asking people to repeat themselves or saying "what?" frequently
• misunderstanding or "forgetting" what has been said or agreed upon
• often cupping hands behind the ears

How You Can Help

If you believe a family member, friend or colleague is suffering from undiagnosed hearing loss, encourage him or her to contact a family doctor or hearing care professional and request a simple test to check for a hearing problem.

In most cases, the hearing test will detect a hearing loss if one is present, as well as determine the type of loss. Based on the hearing test, the hearing professional can recommend the use of a hearing device or other treatment.

The world is a noisy place.  We experience much more noise in our everyday activities than out ancestors ever did. Cars, planes, trains, and everyday city life produces all kinds of loud and potentially damaging noise.

However, if you are suffering from mild hearing loss, it may not be severe enough to affect your ability to understand conversation and enjoy your normal activities.  Therefore do all you can do to protect your hearing from any further loss or degradation.

Most people don’t know what to expect from hearing aids, even after conducting research and talking to other hearing aid wearers. In addition, myths and second-hand experience with old-fashioned analog hearing aids continues to influence the way people think about all hearing aids. But the truth of the matter is hearing aids have changed drastically from outward appearance to internal technology—making them vastly more effective.

• Your ability to hear and understand others should be improved. Other people’s voices shouldn’t sound distorted, harsh, tinny, raspy, sharp, booming, muffled or artificial.
• The sound of your own voice should be “normal” not tinny, harsh, raspy, distorted, booming, muffled or artificial. Your own voice should not sound like you’re in a barrel or have an echo.
• The intensity and quality of familiar sounds should be sharp, bright and clear—not dull or irritating.
• The amount of sound you hear should match the environment. In crowded room with many people talking at once, sound will be loud but not deafening.
• Hearing aids should help you distinguish speech from noise. Hearing aids should be adjusted to optimize this feature.
• When properly tuned, hearing aids should help you identify the location of a sound or voice.  

1. Is your ability to understand others improved?
2. Does your own voice sound natural?
3. Are you able to hear soft sounds?
4. Is the level of amplification comfortable?
5. Are you able to wear the earpieces comfortably for extended periods?
6. Are your hearing aids adequately controlling background noises?
7. Are you comfortable with the appearance of your hearing aids?

Are you able to identify the location of sounds with your hearing aids?

The Importance of Early Intervention

• Get help early to slow the secondary effects of hearing loss

• Early intervention slows cognitive decline and communication problems

• Early intervention improves the use of hearing aids themselves

• Asking others to repeat themselves
• Inability to hear women's and children’s voices especially
• Turning up the volume to levels others find intolerable
• Conversation in places with background noise is especially difficult and frustrating
• Forgetting things
• Claiming others are always “mumbling”
• Seeming more irritable
• Not paying attention
• Withdrawing socially
• Saying things that are irrelevant to the situation
• Not being able to follow a fast-moving conversation
• Lacking their usual keen insight
• Relating well in a one-to-one setting but seeming a bit “out of it” in groups

If you have concerns about someone you care about, suggest a thorough hearing test with a hearing professional. It’s the first step in identifying hearing loss or ruling it out as a contributing cause to other behavioral changes.

Human hearing is designed for two ears. The technical term is binaural listening, and the auditory system is wired for it to allow for the best possible hearing and understanding.

• Provide a full listening experience – As we know from listening to music, hearing in “stereo” rather than “mono” improves the quality of sound. Stereo is more natural and distinct, with a fuller and richer sound. The brain is naturally able to hear sound in this way, but it needs the input from both ears to do so. Using one hearing aid when two are needed does not provide the full input the brain requires.
• Give your brain the information it needs – Just as you have two ears, you have two halves of your brain, and they both work together to create what is known as auditory intelligence. Each ear sends a different signal to your brain, and the signals travel a complicated neural pathway. Some signals stay on the same side of the brain, others cross over to the opposite side where they are received differently and have different effects on perception and understanding. This complex system—involving both ears and both sides of the brain—helps increase auditory intelligence and gives you a fuller understanding of everything you hear.
• Help you detect sound direction – Sound signals from both ears give your brain the ability to locate where sounds are coming from. This can be important socially because it lets you quickly identify which person in a group is speaking so you can bring your attention to them. It is also important for reasons of personal safety; for example binaural hearing helps you identify the direction from which traffic is approaching.
• Contribute to better listening – Being able to hear speech from people on both sides of you in a group setting is critical to participating fully in a conversation. If you’re only wearing a hearing aid in one ear, you can’t hear the person on the other side of you as well. Whether you’re in a business or social setting, understanding is increased with two hearing aids.
• Reduce the need for volume – When two hearing aids are worn, you can keep them at a lower volume and still hear adequately. With just one hearing aid, you often need to turn up the volume to an uncomfortably high level in order to compensate. This can cause one of the most frequent complaints of hearing aid wearers, "Everything sounds too loud!" Keeping the volume down also helps protect your hearing from further damage.
• Help you separate voices from noise – Two hearing aids with directional microphones enable you to weed out the background noise in an environment and focus on the person who is speaking. With only one hearing aid, noises blend together and it is difficult to discriminate between the sounds you want to hear and those you don’t.
• Mask tinnitus – If you suffer from tinnitus (ringing in the ears), the use of two hearing aids can help. Hearing aids are frequently recommended for tinnitus relief—but a single hearing aid alone will not mask the ringing sound in the unaided ear.
• Deliver higher satisfaction with hearing aids overall – Studies show that people who wear two hearing aids when needed are more satisfied with their hearing aids than those who choose to wear only one. The quality of sound provided by two hearing aids significantly enhances the listening experience. Most say once they’ve tried two hearing aids, they would never go back to wearing just one.
• Provide more relaxed listening – For all the reasons above, listening with two hearing aids is less tiring. You don’t have to strain to hear in order to make sense of the sounds around you.