GOING DEAF? MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU

Are you becoming hard of hearing? I began to go deaf in my late forties and since then I’ve picked up some tips on how to cope which have proved useful.

If you notice your hearing is failing, do ask your doctor sooner, rather than later, to arrange a hearing test for you. Recent research proves that if one has an aid fitted in the early stages of hearing loss, your brain will ‘remember’ processing sounds and adjust better to using it. Advice given by ENT Consultants is to initially wear the aid for short periods each day until your brain becomes accustomed to making sense of the sounds again and adapts. Persevere and don’t bury ‘that dratted thing’ in a drawer. Believe me they do work with practice and you’re the one who will benefit.

Make it work for you by avoiding situations you don’t enjoy. You can ‘go deaf’ when volunteers are required for jumble collection, and if the local hypochondriac corners you, don’t even make an effort. Just stick a sympathetic smile on your face and plan your menu while they witter on. Standing in a shrieking aviary at crowded parties clutching a glass of warm, white wine is not my cup of tea, but if you like it remember people with perfect hearing can’t pick up speech against that jabbering so you’re not missing much. And those dreadful, stripped-down restaurants with bare walls, floors, tables and screeching chairs, accompanied by the clatter of cutlery! Choose a cosy, carpeted and curtained venue to meet your friends.

The N.H.S. provide digital hearing aids and most halls and churches have the loop system so you can enjoy lectures, services, whatever, by switching your hearing aids to ‘the loop’ setting which cuts out background noise; and now most theatres furnish amplified ear-phones on request.

By using ear-phones for television and radio you can hear clearly without the volume being too high for other people, and I’ve recently acquired an amplified telephone which is a boon.

Since joining a lip reading class, I’ve realised everybody automatically lip reads to an extent. The main skill to learn is concentration. Get the subject of the conversation and the rhythm of the speech, then practise the mental jigsaw puzzle required to fill in details and you’ll be surprised how much you can ‘hear’ when you become adept. It keeps the brain on the hop so the old grey matter is exercised.

Some useful tips to remember:-

Place yourself in a favourable position so the light shines on other people’s faces. That way you can practise the above skills more easily and pick up valuable clues to the conversation.

If you don’t catch something, ask a ‘closed’ question, i.e. ‘Did you say fifteen?’ instead of ‘What did you say?’ or ‘Did you say fifty or fifteen?’

Don’t be embarrassed if you have to ask someone to speak slowly or repeat what they said. They’re not embarrassed. Why should you be?

You can practise these tricks without attending a lip-reading class, but it does help to learn the shape of consonants and vowels on the lips in a constructive way under tuition. Of course you have to work at it and no-one else can do that for you, but the reward is being part of the community instead of sitting alone wondering what you’re missing.

There’s no need to despair if you discover your hearing is failing. There is life after deaf.

Pam Eaves