CANADA – “Sorry you’ll have to repeat that.”
A phrase not to be taken lightly for the thousands of Canadians with poor personal hearing habits in an ever increasing noisy world.
May is marked as “Speech and Hearing Awareness Month” across the country.
According to Statistics Canada, the majority of Canadians with measured hearing loss are not aware of having hearing problems.
In 2012 and 2013 around 70 per-cent of adults with measured hearing loss did not report any diagnosis by a health care professional, while the same occurred in 83 per-cent of children and youth.
Nathan Wiebe, Registered Hearing Aid Practitioner with Southern Alberta Hearing Aid Ltd., cited several misconceptions surrounding hearing loss and treatment.
“Some people think that a hearing aid makes them old and that hearing aids squeal and have to be continuously adjusted. It isn’t easy to pick out the problem. Often, when individuals start experiencing hearing loss, they think that other people are mumbling,” he said.
While smartphones and improved hearing aid technology has made communication easier, Danielle Smith, Engagement and Resource and Development Manager with Deaf and Hear Alberta, said that many still encounter barriers and insensitivity today.
“We realize that experiencing hearing loss has an impact on social inclusion. A lot of clients explain that they don’t hear simple conversations with family members and that this makes them stop communicating with those people,” she said.
Smith said that clients often voice being faced with frustration when they ask others to repeat things they might not have heard clearly, or that they are denied that request altogether.
“Having to explain that they have a hearing loss to begin with is extremely frustrating; it really is an invisible condition,” she said.
To help break the stigma Wiebe suggested educating all of those affected by a loved one’s hearing loss.
Comparing the price of glasses to hearing aids and deciding whether to purchase hearing aids, Wiebe said that clients should shop around as treatment pricings greatly vary.
As far as prevention goes, the Hearing Aid Practitioner suggested ear muffs over ear plugs.
“A lot of people don’t realize that doing a lot of the yard work chores increases your exposure and probability of hearing loss. If you place ear muffs around loud equipment you are more likely to wear them than if you just place ear plugs in your tool kit,” Wiebe said.
Taking more precautions with hearing will also reduce costs for Health Canada.
The Speech-Language and Audiology Canada, reported that the cost of hearing loss to the nation’s economy is estimated to be in the tens of
billions of dollars.
For more information on hearing loss treatment in Alberta, visit: http://www.health.alberta.ca/documents/AADL-Hearing-Aid-brochure.pdf
For local news delivered daily to your email inbox, subscribe for free to the Lethbridge News Now newsletter here. You can also download the Lethbridge News Now mobile app in the Google Play and the Apple App Stores.
