By Teresa Carr
Adams County Senior Council
Administrative Assistant
Happy July Independence Day! Our office will be closed on Friday, July 4.
From the Healthy Hearing Online – Hearing Loss and Loneliness:
Hearing loss can accentuate social isolation and loneliness. While many researchers often study them jointly, they are distinctly different.
Social Isolation occurs when someone doesn’t have a lot of social contacts, that is, you could tally up ow many social interactions a person has in a day.
Loneliness unlike social isolation is a feeling – like feeling lonely in a crowd. Think of loneliness as the gap between the amount and type of connections you’d like to have and what you actually experience.
Hearing loss makes social isolation more common and this in turn can lead to feeling lonely. Cynthia Modrosic, AuD, of Professional Hearing Center in Missouri says, “My clinical experience has been that a lot of people have said, ‘I don’t feel like going out with my family or friends anymore because I can’t hear them and I can’t participate in the conversation.’”
While some shrinking of your social circle may occur naturally with age, it’s more pronounced for older people with hearing impairments. A lack of face-to-face contact can make both social isolation and loneliness worse for people with hearing loss. Technology can only help so much, points out Modrosic. Many of her patients use older flip phones, putting video chat services like FaceTime out of reach. And, she points out, not everyone has reliable internet or cell service to use video chat programs.
While hearing aids may be part of the solution, many find them difficult to get adjusted correctly and louder isn’t always better. Others though, after being fit with hearing aids or undergoing a surgical cochlear implant, these same patients return with a smile and their family reporting that they are a changed person.
Until you, your family and your doctor find solutions to your particular hearing loss, Modrosic recommends common-sense but meaningful adjustments such as: asking people to face you when they talk, requesting that people take turns when speaking to you or muting the TV is someone in the room is speaking to you.
Sometimes the acoustics in a room can make it harder to hear. Relocate: try switching rooms if the conversation is really challenging. Avoid small rooms with bare floors, as they tend to distort sound.
Final tips:
· Try to get the person’s attention with a tap or a wave, don’t shout or clap.
· Speak to them face to face, don’t speak with your head turned away from them.
· Speak slowly and clearly, don’t speak rapidly and loudly.
· Rephrase what you have said in different words.
· Please, be patient and keep trying, even using notes if you have to.
· If they are tech savvy, text them!
Just A Thought: “Sometimes the best thing you can do is not think, not obsess. Just breathe and have faith that all will work out for the best.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
