Why do some people seek help for their hearing difficulties and others don’t?
This question has bothered hearing scientists, audiologists and health planners for some time. Many excellent studies and surveys have been carried out over the years, including the progressive series of studies by Sergei Kochkin, which have effectively monitored changing attitudes to hearing loss and hearing aids over a number of years. Most people have an opinion on this question, but the fact is, we don’t really know.
Most people who would benefit from using hearing aids don’t go ahead and get them. In some countries, like Australia and the USA, cost has been a deterrent to early uptake of hearing aids. In countries with comprehensive availability of hearing aids, there are different reasons, although I wonder if the term “easy access to quality hearing aids” replaced the word cost, whether there would be any difference. I’m not about to do that research, but someone might.
In the UK, the Medical Research Council did a survey of ear, nose and throat problems and found that only 20% of people with hearing difficulties had hearing aids. Some studies suggest that perseverance is needed in getting a referral from a primary care physician – in other words, you tell your doctor that you have difficulty hearing, and yet you are not referred for or advised to get hearing aids. This seems surprising, but research done by Kochkin of The Better Hearing Institute showed similar data. In fact the MarkeTrak VIII survey paints a gloomy picture in that most people telling their family doctor that they have hearing difficulties are not recommended to get hearing aids, and 16-18% are specifically advised against it. I can’t get my head around this. I can only assume that it is in some way related to wanting to protect their patients from the cost.
The relationship between a pure tone audiogram (hearing chart) and hearing difficulties isn’t all that good. It’s certainly not a one to one relationship, and two people with identical audiograms can have quite different hearing and speech understanding abilities. Added to that, the problem caused by the hearing difficulty will vary greatly with a person’s lifestyle, employment, state of mental health, cognitive ability and attitude. Losing sensitivity to hearing environmental sounds is usually so gradual that people don’t recognise that it’s happening, but these same people experience a lot of pleasure when the environmental sounds are reintroduced.
I think we shouldn’t try to over analyse, except as is needed for public health planning. If you have difficulties hearing, try excellent quality hearing aids. Even if you are having ear treatment, ask your physician about using hearing aids as well. I see a lot of people in our clinic, who I am sure haven’t heard the doctor’s advice properly. This might be about their ear health or about other health issues. If you have hearing difficulties, then navigating medical advice without hearing aids is not a good idea. All the research data is pointing to the importance of using hearing aids as soon as you have difficulties. Not doing so is creating a problem for your future.
