Psychological barriers to better hearing

What do Tommy Thompson and former president Clinton have in common?  Hearing loss. Over 25 million Americans have hearing loss that affects their daily communication abilities.  Yet, only about one third seek help for their hearing concerns.  And worse yet, those who do seek help wait an average of seven years before they seek help. 

Why do people wait?  It was once thought that people were concerned about the cosmetics of hearing instruments and that was the deterrent in purchasing hearing instruments.  But now, hearing instruments are cosmetically appealing, stylish, and very small, and still people are not getting help.  It was thought that perhaps people did not purchase hearing instruments because they performed poorly, yet despite trillions of dollars invested in new computerized digital circuitry that provides improved sound quality, feedback suppression, speech enhancement, pattern recognition, and noise suppression, people still are not getting help.  It was thought that perhaps the cost of hearing assistance was a factor, yet despite competitive pricing, leasing and financing options; people are still not getting help.  Why?  

I think that the reason people get help for their vision and delay seeking help for their hearing has to do with a different factor – accommodation.  If you have poor vision, you cannot get others to change the size of text (the newspaper font will not scale to a larger size if you ask it nicely to get bigger), or the distance of objects to enhance your perception (the tree in the distance will not grow legs and walk toward you to see it more clearly).  So, there is a strong personal motivation for the individual with the vision problem to correct it so they can see the world the way others see it.  However, with hearing loss, folks can turn up the volume of the TV and telephone, ask others to speak up or speak slowly to enhance their ability to hear sound.  In other words, they can ask their environment to accommodate to their disability. 

Many times it is the family and friends of the person with the hearing loss that are frustrated at having to repeat everything they say.  They are hoarse from raising their voices and truly grieving for the spontaneity of conversation they once enjoyed with their spouse or friend.  They are literally dragging the friend or spouse into the office of the audiologist because of their frustrations in communication.  Out of love, they have done such a good job of accommodating the person’s hearing loss, that the person with the loss is not at all bothered by their hearing problem.