Your World Of Better Hearing

By Barbara Marshall

Helen Keller said that blindness isolates you from things, while hearing loss isolates you from people. Hearing loss has been misdiagnosed as senility and as other mental disorders or disabilities. Often, people with losses make social mistakes or isolate themselves from people in order to avoid making mistakes.

In most cases, the only way to get help for that person is the use of hearing aids. However, hearing aids can not heal a hearing loss. They can only help the person to hear better. Hearing is often lost over a long period of time and people gradually get used to the diminished sound levels. When amplification is introduced, the most often heard complaint is of background noise.

There are no hearing aids that can completely filter out all the background noise. That is a function of the brain. However, there are special circuits that can help reduce the background noise to a more comfortable level.

New users should start out by wearing the aids a few hours every day and add a little more time each week until the aids can be worn all day. The user will become more accustom to background noise after wearing the aids all day. However, patience is a virtue for the new hearing aids user and his/her family. The family can help by encouraging the use of aids, getting the attention of the person, and reducing the amount of noise in the room. They can also talk slower and more distinctly, however, they should not over exaggerate lip movements, or speak too loudly. The family should get the attention of the hearing aid user and look directly at them. Lip reading is a sub-conscience skill that is learned over a long period of time. Excess facial hair on the speaker may impair that ability for the hearing impaired person. A person who talks with a hand over the mouth is also hard to lip read.

Adjusting to new aids requires practice and patience on the part of both the user and the family.