"Excuse me, could you repeat that?"

It happens at a movie or play, or maybe while we’re watching TV.  I lean over to my wife and whisper: “What did she say?”   I may have to wait for the laughter to subside or for a quiet moment before I ask.

I’m one of the nearly 10 percent of Americans with hearing loss, although mine is fairly moderate and has little effect on my job performance or everyday living.  I started wearing a hearing aid in the late 90s that was provided by a previous employer’s health insurance plan.  Since then, I have replaced my hearing aids twice (they have an average life expectancy of about 5 years) at a cost of thousands.

My audiologist says I have adult hearing loss (also known as presbycusis) and tinnitus, a nearly constant ringing and occasional clicking in my ears.  The cause: a combination of age (I’m 67), heredity and environment (meaning those countless hours spent at rock concerts and college bars). The heredity part of the condition came from my dad. When I was a teenager, I began to notice he said “huh” quite often during conversations. Later in life, he did get hearing aids and I think they really helped him. In fact, he told me he really liked the volume controls, especially if my mom was upset about something he did or didn’t do.

The Problem with Hearing Loss

There is no cure for the damaged nerve endings in my middle ear that fail to accurately convert the vibration of the eardrum from words and sounds into the electronic energy that my brain can recognize.

The maximum optimal frequency range of human hearing is from 20 to 20,000 cycles per second or kilohertz (kHz).  My audiologist says my hearing is normal up to about 1,000 kHz, and then falls below normal.  Unfortunately, most human speech occurs in the 1,000 to 4,000 kHz range.

In one-on-one conversation or in small groups, I can function just fine although I may have to ask that something be repeated on occasion.  But, add a little background noise, at a party or in a crowded restaurant for example, and I have more difficulty.

In the comic strip “Crankshaft,” Crankshaft’s best friend and fellow senior citizen Ralph, a former big band-era musician, bemoans his hearing loss because he no longer hears the voices of women and children.  Crankshaft replies: “What’s so bad about that?”

Social Effects of Hearing Loss

What’s so bad about that is that others may feel I’m uninterested in them because I don’t respond to everything they’ve said and I may feel I’ve already used up my self-imposed limit of asking them to repeat themselves.  When our neighbors’ four-year old son and I would talk years ago, I bet I didn’t understand half of the words he was saying. Now that he’s 13, I understand him just fine.

I’ve taught at a local university for many years and I didn’t have a problem hearing most of my students most of the time. But, there were instances where I couldn’t understand a specific student or comment, even if repeated.

In order to avoid frustration, I find my tastes in movies and TV have changed, as my hearing gets progressively worse.   When we pick out a video to watch, any British accent “chick flicks” that my wife enjoys are off limits unless I can turn on the closed captions.  I find myself using the captioning feature on my TV most of the time for dramas and comedy—to “hear” someone I’m having difficulty understanding.

I also have declined to go to plays or programs or meetings where I think I might have a problem understand what’s being said.  And that’s the issue.  I hear the voices but I can’t understand every word, even with my hearing aids.  I would rather not go through the frustration and fatigue of not understanding than having to keep asking for something to be repeated.

Hearing Loss and Aging

Many researchers, including the National Academy on an Aging Society have observed that older people with hearing disorders tend to volunteer less, be less healthy and are more depressed and less satisfied with their lives. Many are concerned about the stigma, effectiveness and mostly the cost of a hearing aid. While you can purchase an economy model that simply amplifies all sounds for a couple of hundred dollars, more effective models with adjustable frequency response control that can be customized for an individual’s specific hearing disorder can cost up to several thousand dollars for a pair.

As more Baby Boomers move into senior status, the number of Americans with impaired hearing will increase.  I just hope we aren’t stereotyped like the old geezer with the horn held to his ear or that aid for the hearing impaired doesn’t consist of someone shouting at us—ala Garrett Morris’s news for the hearing-impaired on “Saturday Night Live” many years ago.

But, there are a few simple things you can do to help me and others like me hear you more clearly.  Make sure we can see your face clearly and don’t try to speak to us from another room or across a large room.  You don’t have to speak a lot louder, but make sure you speak clearly.   Try to reduce background noise by turning down the TV or making sure we converse in a quieter section of a public place like a restaurant.  But, most of all, show some understanding without being patronizing. 

After all, odds are some day when you are older you’ll be asking someone to repeat something they just said to you too.