Campaign For Better Hearing offers free screenings at age 60Date: 3/13/2019 SHREWSBURY, MA – When was the last time you had your hearing tested? If you are like most Americans, your hearing tests ended sometime back in grade or middle school.
“That’s a long time [ago],” said Dr. Leslie Soiles, chief audiologist for this year’s National Campaign for Better Hearing. “It’s a long stretch of adulthood to not have a mile marker, if you will, to see how an individual’s hearing is lining up with what normal values should be.”
Soiles, who spoke to Reminder Publishing about the campaign from her practice in Eastern Massachusetts, said the 2019 push to improve the nation’s hearing includes a year-long opportunity for free hearing screenings with the goal of getting all 60-year olds to have a “benchmark” hearing test.
To find a hearing center offering the free hearing assessment screenings throughout 2019 call 866-837-8386 or visit CampaignForBetterHearing.us.
Getting us all hearing better
Soiles said the Campaign for Better Hearing chose 60 as the target age for this year’s campaign for a number of reasons.
“We, as human beings, we have this great capacity to put up with something that isn’t perfect, and because hearing loss is a very slow, progressing situation, we tend to just cope with it and not address it when it should be addressed,” Soiles said. “The age 60 mile marker is really to put hearing health awareness in front of people at an age when they are likely to start experiencing some of these changes.”
The campaign is also hoping to raise public awareness of the far-reaching implications and effects of hearing loss.
“An example of some of the social implications [of hearing loss] – somebody with untreated hearing loss is likely to start annoying people around them,” Soiles said. “Family members become impatient with the need to repeat themselves so the person [with hearing loss] may decide to take a backseat to the conversation … or they fake participation in the conversation without really understanding what is being discussed.”
She said hearing loss can also have an economic impact on the individual and their family.
“Research indicates people with an untreated hearing loss actually have a substantially lower earning capacity,” Soiles said, adding she recently had a conversation with a patient in his late 30s newly diagnosed with significant hearing loss.
“He went ahead and had his hearing evaluated – even though he felt he was way too young to be wearing hearing aids – and he told me the within the past year he’s been promoted twice since getting the hearing aids,” Soiles said. “He now brings his A-game [to work] every day instead of faking it.”
Soiles, who herself suffers from significant hearing loss and has worn hearing aids for 30 years, said individuals shouldn’t let the stigma associated with wearing hearing aids stop them from enjoying better hearing.
“At the end of the day, the hearing loss itself is going to be more obvious to the people around them than the physical presence of hearing aids in your ears,” Soiles said. “If someone has untreated hearing loss, people around them are more likely to think the person is rude because he [or she] hasn’t responded appropriately, or hasn’t responded at all.
“Or the individual who needs hearing aids and doesn’t wear them may be perceived as stupid because they just responded with something that is totally off base from what is being said,” she added.
With recent advances in hearing technology and styling, Soiles said individuals shouldn’t think that wearing hearing aids would make them look old.
“Instead, they look old because they’re constantly saying, ‘What? What?’” she said.
Do you need to be tested?
Age aside, Soiles said anyone experiencing any of the following hearing issues should consider getting their hearing tested.
“If somebody is having difficulty hearing when they are in a noisy environment – they may be fine in a quiet environment but in a restaurant or social setting they are finding they have to lean in or have people repeat things, that is one of the first indicators there are beginning signs of hearing loss,” Soiles said.
Another indicator, she said, is that you need to have the T.V. turned up louder than your partner or fellow television watchers would like.
A third indicator of hearing loss is having difficulty understanding what is being said if the person isn’t facing you when speaking.
The fourth indicator is issues with clarity.
“If someone characterizes their hearing experience as ‘I can hear but I don’t understand what is being said,’ that is the beginning signs of hearing loss,” Soiles said.
For more information on the 2019 National Campaign for Better Hearing, email questions to info@CampaignForBetterHearing.us or visit www.CampaignForBetterHearing.us.
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