“Did you say, ‘Hearing Aids’?”
What?
It’s what we say, what we have to say, again and again because neither of us hears very well. My wife took steps to change, or at least improve, that situation several years ago. Now I am about to. I’m about to get hearing aids.
Hearing loss seems, at our age, like an unpleasant rite of passage, sort of like needing to cut down on red meat and taking afternoon naps. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, more than 65 percent of people aged 71 or above suffer from some degree of hearing loss (by age 85, almost all adults have hearing loss). Yet, according to the study, only 29 percent of those with hearing loss used hearing aids, although 55 to 65 percent would benefit from what the authors delicately call amplification.
I’ve been one of those who have contributed to the “usage gap.”
That’s despite pretty much everyone I know now using hearing aids. Some people who have them are even a bit younger. Many have been using them for years. Some I didn’t even know have been wearing hearing aids. Yes, they are, I acknowledge, pretty discreet gadgets these days.
Still, for years I’ve fought against the idea of getting hearing aids, fought against the realization I needed to do something about my hearing. I fought even though I had difficulty hearing in noisy and sometimes not-so-noisy restaurants. I had difficulty hearing our friend Laura who speaks so softly. I had difficulty hearing the dialogue in television shows and movies, and if there was a British accent involved, it was pretty much impossible. Thank god for closed captioning!
I even fought against the idea of getting hearing aids even though I know dealing with hearing loss is an important factor affecting healthy aging. It is associated, for instance, with cognitive decline, with hearing loss increasing dementia risk by 50 percent compared to normal hearing. It increases the chances of depression. It can impair physical function, lead to poorer health outcomes. And I knew evidence suggests hearing aids may, in the words of researchers, “mitigate these associations and prevent poor health outcomes.”
But somehow, I had convinced myself that getting hearing aids would be a kind of tacit acknowledgement of something I didn’t want to acknowledge: that I’m old. That my body and my senses are failing. That I’m just another one of those old people who need technical support to function in the world and get through the day.
Next thing, I’ll be needing a cane and then a walker and then . . . And, I told myself, my hearing is really not so bad. It’s no worse than a lot of people. If I lean forward, I can hear Laura. I can stop going to noisy restaurants or ask to get a booth in the corner.
Then the other day, after steadily increased pressure from my wife, the person to whom I most often kept repeating, “what?” I relented. I went to the audiologist and got tested, to get the actual numbers for why I had difficulty hearing.
The numbers were sobering.
After getting in the booth and putting on the headphones, I found out that at higher pitch, the hearing loss in my right ear was severe and verged on profound. It solidly landed in profound in my left ear. In other words, there was little doubt—I need hearing aids.
I feel like I’m entering a special club of old, diminished people. I hate the idea. But it will be nice to have an intelligible conversation in a noisy restaurant again.