Why Most People Ignore Hearing Issues for a Decade

0:00

It's Sound Advice with audiologist Doug Leonard from ASI, Audiological Services of Iowa. Today we want to talk about a Facebook post that you've got, Doug. It's an article about the loop system that was used at, I believe it was Colorado State University. But we're not specifically talking about the loop system this time. We're talking about understanding, maybe in a group setting or in a meeting type setting, something like that. If you're not understanding things, you're missing way more than you think you are.

0:29

Yeah, there was kind of a really neat quote in that article. I mean, what it was about, Colorado State had made an effort for accessibility for hearing impaired folks, you know, and they had installed a loop system in some of their venues. When you're in an environment like that as a person with hearing loss, sometimes you don't realize how much you're missing. And there was actually a quote and the person said, you know, if you think you're missing 25% of the conversation, you're probably missing 75% because you're not understanding the context. Then once you accept that you have a problem or you realize you need hearing aids and get them, you realize that not having them was really holding you back. And I thought that was a great point, and it's something that I encounter every day with patients. We lose our hearing so gradually that you just don't know what you're missing. And we tend to minimize problems. You know, my cholesterol is a little too high, or I could stand to lose 10 pounds when I probably should lose 30 pounds. We minimize issues as human beings, and that also extends to hearing loss.

1:25

When people come in to seek treatment for their hearing loss, they think it's fairly recent, but when in fact, it's average of 10 years that people wait to even do anything about it.

1:34

Yeah, you know, it's one of those unseen things, you know. We always say that folks have sudden hearing loss, they tend to overestimate that. And sudden hearing loss is pretty rare, but... You wake up one day and you can't hear out an ear, you know something's going on. But when it's just gradual, age-related, called presbycusis or noise-induced hearing loss, we don't realize that we don't hear as much as we did even a year ago or five or ten. And so we tend to minimize it and, again, don't seek help for it.

1:59

And, again, those folks that don't use their hearing aids all the time or the way they should, you're not getting the most out of it. You're not understanding that.

2:06

Yeah, I mean, you can't be effective and they can't work well for a patient if they're not using consistently all day long. The most successful patients with hearing instruments put them in in the morning and they wear them until the time they go to bed, you know, with a few exceptions, obviously bathing or whatever. But, you know, you have to be consistent, you have to use them, and it's really a long-term rehabilitation when people first get hearing aids.

2:29

Yeah, let me repeat that line. If you think you're missing 25% of the conversation, you're probably missing 75% of it.

2:36

I think that's very true because if I actually had patients rate their hearing loss, most people would say it's mild and they really probably have moderate, severe, or profound hearing loss. That's why it's so important, and I always talk about get a baseline test years at 50 years, and especially with Better Hearing Month coming up next month.

2:54

Yeah, and we're going to talk something about that coming up next week. So stay tuned. It's Audiological Services of Iowa, and this has been Sound Advice.