Problems encounter with hearing.
Your ears are simply two appendages fastened to the side of
your head. Each has an opening that ultimately
leads to your brain. The ear flaps serve
no other purpose than to hold your glasses in place. If you wear contacts, you could have your ear
flaps removed to cut down air resistance when swinging a golf club. Some of the following may be old hat to many
people but is part of the greater story
That hole in the center of the outer ear leads to the ear
drum which catches sound vibrations from air waves. Those vibrations are transferred to the inner
ear where small nerves transform them into electrical pulses that the brain can
understand and interpret. Your brain is
then, in effect, your hearing organ.
When the small nerve hairs (cilia) are damaged your ear loses its
ability to transmit those electrical pulses.
The nerve hairs vary in length. The
shorter ones carry the higher frequencies and are the first to be damaged,
resulting in high frequency loss of hearing.
The longer nerves carry the lower frequencies and are the last to be
lost.
Hearing loss tends to sneak up on you like a thief in the
dark. My own started with a shirt pocket
full of “dud” firecrackers when I was 14 years old in 1952. I got my first hearing aid 25 years
later. I have no idea how much “book
learning” I lost in school but it might contribute to the fact that I was in
the “slow lane” sometimes in school. My
consolation is that Beethoven and Edison were both deaf so I am in good company.
Most people that have a slow progressive hearing loss may
not realize it but they become excellent speech
readers. (Lip reading is a misnomer) Speech reading involves amplitude of voice,
facial expressions and tone as well as the position of the lips. Try saying the words “eagle” and “beagle”. You will notice that the only difference is a
slight pop of the lips on the word “beagle”.
Excellent speech readers can pick this up.
There several things you can do to help someone that is
hearing impaired. First, face the person
and do not obscure your mouth or any other part of your face. Speak distinctly and not fast or slow. If you wear a mustache, for God’s sake, shave
it off.
The person that has a hearing problem should not apologize for not being able to
hear. You should not say, “I am sorry but I did not hear you”. Rather say, “Say it again”. See how that
rolls across your tongue and gets the message across. After about the third request say, “Dammit, speak English”. Most importantly, it is
not your fault for not being able to hear, it is the speakers problem for the
lack of making themselves understood.
You must be offensive, not defensive. Never, never apologize for not
being able to hear something unless there is a valid reason such as background
noise.
Another problem for the hearing impaired is crowds. If more than three people are talking it is
almost impossible to tune in on one person and understand what is being
said. That is when you just smile and
nod. A week ago Connie and I met two
friends at a small diner that serves good food.
The first 15 minutes were ok but then the thundering lunch herd came in
to eat. I didn’t understand a word being
said till the thundering herd stampeded out the door a half hour later. If you do happen to understand what is being
said, your brain is usually a day late and a dollar short. By the time you have formulated a response,
the subject has changed. Since you
rarely are able to add to the conversation, people tend to “talk over” you when
you do try to add something. It happens
all the time.
Many audiologists advertise their product as being “unidirectional”
That is impossible unless the aid has three microphones. The sound is picked up in a forward direction
with a BTE (behind the ear) with lesser amounts picked up to the side and rear. The person wearing the aid often cannot
distinguish the direction of the sound.
The ITC (in the canal) aid is better at direction because it has the
outer ear to pick up and funnel sound.
Basically the aid amplifies sound.
It is the frequency tuning that makes the difference. With my first ITC hearing aid I knew the low frequencies
were being over amplified because I could hear a car turn the corner 4/10 of a
mile from our house. I went back to the
audiologist and he took a high speed grinder and made the sound entrance opening
cone shaped instead of a straight drilled hole.
It quieted the sound down. It was
an analog aid, not a digital aid. Rocket
science it is called.
The last thing you should understand is price. Hearing aids are a rip off. The ear mold costs about 50 bucks. That is not bad. The mold is shipped to the vendor along with
a frequency chart from your ear hearing test..
He makes a plastic replica by dunking the mold in plaster. If he screws
up the plaster cast, he simply molds another one. He uses a high speed drill to hollow out the
cavity of the new earpiece. He then
assembles OFF THE SHELF items. These include the power source bracket, a tunable
amplifier and a microphone. He then
cements a plastic cap to the aid and tunes it according to the frequency chart
sent along with the ear mold. The time frame is 14 hours between receipt and
shipping. Most of that time is cure time
for the plastic parts. (Source: Modern Marvels) The aid should
cost no more than a cheap transistor radio.
Hearing aid dispensers always tout the fact that their aid is “discreet”
and “unseen”. That is a lot of
crap. If you really want to hear you
would wear a backpack for help. Enough
ranting for now.
