Home for the Holidays

Soon many of you will be heading home for the holidays to spend quality time with close family and friends. It’s a time for festivities, fabulous food and fun. It may also serve as an opportune time to chat with loved ones whom you may have noticed are having some challenges hearing conversations or who may be steadily increasing the volume as they watch their favorite television shows.

There are numerous reasons to take action now if you haven’t yet talked to your mom or dad or a grandparent about potential hearing loss. Lucid Hearing’s Territory Vice President Jenifer Stoltz notes that because hearing loss happens over time, it’s easy for some people to underestimate their need for help.

“I think with people who have hearing loss, it happens gradually over time, and as humans, we just start to adapt,” Stoltz says. “We start to figure out, well I’m going to turn the TV up louder, I’m going to look at this person’s lips while they’re speaking, I’m going to use closed captioning, or I’m going to look to my partner when I don’t understand something, so essentially somebody else becomes the ‘hearing aid’ and they don’t realize how much it’s impacting them.”

Here we attempt to offer information to help you better understand hearing loss and its impact and provide suggestions for what might be a sensitive conversation, especially if you know your loved one perceives there’s a stigma with wearing a hearing aid (getting older, self-conscious about needing help), or is concerned about cost.

Losing “speech understanding” or having difficulty clearly following someone’s speech is usually a result of hearing loss. People with hearing loss sometimes complain that others “are mumbling,” or they have difficulty hearing clearly the words spoken by women or children (who typically speak in softer tones). This is usually associated with sensorineural hearing (high frequency) loss, which makes it harder to hear consonant sounds. Stoltz, who wears hearing aids herself, says that individuals with hearing impairment may not realize how much of their speech understanding is being impacted by hearing loss.

“What they may not realize is that the longer they let their hearing loss go, without getting help, the worse their speech understanding gets, including their ability to understand speech even after we correct it with hearing aids,” Stoltz says. “So, if we do something sooner, they’re going to have an easier transition, a better experience [with hearing aids], and they’re going to be able to understand more even in noisy environments than if they were to wait.”

Studies have shown that five to seven years is typically the amount of time that it takes for people to seek treatment for hearing impairment. That period of time is sometimes referred to as “the river of molasses” Stoltz notes, because it’s like a slow but steady loss of hearing until finally it reaches a point where the individual realizes the criticality of their need for a hearing solution.

“If we can shorten that timeframe, and get people to act more quickly, then we’re going to be able to preserve more of their speech understanding,” Stoltz emphasizes. “This is where I think OTC (over-the-counter hearing aids) is going to give us the opportunity to do that because people who were resistant to go get help, are at least saying, ‘well, let me try the OTC’.”

OTC hearing aids recently became available for those with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss, and these hearing aids can be purchased in retail stores without getting a hearing test or a prescription. Learn more about OTC hearing aids and how they compare to prescription.

Additionally important, hearing loss can lead to challenging issues beyond speech understanding, like cognitive decline and dementia. A study by the National Institute on Aging revealed that older adults with hearing loss were more likely to develop dementia than older adults with normal hearing. In fact, there was a relationship between level of uncorrected hearing loss and level of dementia risk: mild hearing loss was associated with a two-fold increase in risk; moderate hearing loss with a three-fold increase in risk, and severe hearing loss with a five-fold increase in risk. Furthermore, a more recent study found that cognitive abilities (including memory and concentration) declined faster in older adults with hearing loss, as compared to older adults with normal hearing.

The best way to determine if you or a loved one have hearing loss is to get a hearing test with a licensed specialist. Lucid Hearing offers free testing in more than 500 locations nationwide. There’s even a 5-minute hearing assessment available online to get started and determine whether you need to seek help.

If the hearing test reveals mild-to-moderate hearing loss, you or your loved one may be a candidate for over-the-counter hearing aids (OTC), which have recently hit the market and offer affordability and easy accessibility because no prescription is required. Lucid Hearing OTC hearing aids are available in more than 450 Sam’s Club locations, as well as other retail outlets and online via Amazon and on lucidhearing.com. Prescription hearing aids also work for mild-to-moderate hearing loss, but also offer solutions for more severe and profound hearing loss providing a more personalized fit and sound clarity. If prescription hearing aids are warranted, your loved one can get a free hearing test and get prescription hearing aids the same day through Lucid’s hearing centers located inside Sam’s Clubs.