Hearing Loss Doesn't Just Affect You!

Have you ever wondered how your hearing loss might impact those around you? Maybe you already know because your family was part of your motivation to visit Hearing HealthCare Centers. Or you might be surprised to learn that when you experience a degree of hearing loss, those around you are also experiencing its effects! What’s more, the impacts can be frustrating enough to cause significant communication breakdowns that lead to social isolation and depression.

In this month’s article Dr. Nicole Lilly discusses how hearing loss doesn’t just affect you but how it can impact the lives and relationships of those around you. We will also be discussing ways to improve communication between you and your loved one with hearing loss, if it isn’t YOU who is hard of hearing, but maybe your partner or another family member.

As always, our goal at Hearing HealthCare Centers is to link arms with you, correct your hearing loss to the best of our ability, and restore as many communication breakdowns as possible!

For more information or to schedule an evaluation to see where your hearing prescription currently stands, please visit one of our 7 front-range clinics at www.HearingHealthCareCenters.com or by calling 303-558-5811.

We can look at conversation like a puzzle made up of multiple pieces. Things like eye contact, body language, tone of voice, are all pieces to this puzzle, but probably the most significant piece to the hearing-person’s conversation, is hearing. This is because conversation requires a sharing of ideas between two or more partners in a fluent and cohesive pattern!

Fluency is how well the topic naturally flows or how well you are able to communicate your ideas from one person to another. This flow in conversation or pattern is easily broken when the listener requires the speaker to repeat what was said or say it differently because the listener couldn’t make it out the initial way.

Sometimes, the hard of hearing listener may answer a completely inappropriate response to a question, for example, the speaker might ask, “What did you do over the weekend?” and the hard-of- hearing listener might respond,” Oh yes, I would love fried chicken!”
OR WORSE, just nod and smile in agreement.

This is an obvious breakdown in the flow of conversation that can be damaging to relationships. Over time, these types of disfluent conversations tend to become draining and uncomfortable, eventually leading to the avoidance of conversations altogether, and eventual isolation of the hard-of-hearing individuals.

Next, although you might not realize it, inability to hear most definitely impacts the moods and demeanor of the hard of hearing. Recent studies have shown that individuals who are hard of hearing often demonstrate paranoia and suspiciousness of their family members as it becomes more challenging to discriminate “whispering” from normal conversations.1 As a result, both sides might feel rejection, friction, and lack of understanding that can be hurtful and hard to recover from in some instances.

Lastly, having to listen to the TV or radio to the volume at which the hard of hearing can hear it, can often be over-stimulating to the point where the person with normal hearing can’t even be in the same room as the TV or radio. If you need to listen to the television at a volume that hurts the ears of everyone else in the room, you are going to gradually push people away from enjoying that activity with you, leading to social isolation.

Social isolation is an avoidable consequence of hearing loss. Given the strong link between hearing loss and cognitive decline, it is critical to avoid social isolation and unnecessary listening effort as much as possible. Retaining and maintaining the relationships you’ve worked so hard on for all those years before having hearing loss, is crucial to brain health and slowing mental decline.

Fortunately, help is available! If you suspect that you or a loved one has hearing loss, the first step is to visit your local Hearing HealthCare Centers and have your hearing evaluated. If hearing treatment is warranted, the audiologist will walk you through your options and find a solution to help you hear better.

Even with optimally fit hearing aids, communication strategies are an important part of the rehabilitation process! If you implement the following strategies into your lives, it can have an extremely positive impact on communication and relationships!

Get the individual's attention: If someone does not know you are ready to speak, they are less likely to respond. If you get the person’s attention first and pull their focus away from the TV or the book they are reading they are much more likely to understand what you say the first time.

Make sure you are in the same room: We get so comfortable in relationships that we forget how to communicate appropriately. Even for those who have normal hearing, trying to talk to each other from other rooms just doesn’t work.

Decrease background noise: Similar to making sure you are in the same room, decreasing background noise is also important. When you are talking to someone who is in the kitchen and has the sink running, they will almost always need to turn the water off to hear what is being said. Muting the TV is also a good strategy.

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