Listen up! Now is the time to protect your hearing

Hearing loss can happen at any age. There are steps you can take to prevent, diagnose and treat it.

Right now there’s some activity going on behind the scenes that might impact whether or not your health insurance covers your hearing aid, regardless of what age you are. Dr. Mindy Brudereck, an audiologist with Berks Hearing Professionals and the president of the Pennsylvania Academy of Audiology, is an active participant in this effort.

“We are trying to get members of the state House and the state Senate behind us in trying to get them to make insurers of Pennsylvania cover at least a portion of prescribed hearing aids for everyone,” Brudereck said. “In the state of Pennsylvania, the only ones that are covered are children on Medicaid. Some insurers cover hearing aids for adults over age 21, but it’s not mandatory and we want to make it mandatory.”

As a result, many who need them can’t afford them.

“It can be life-changing for patients,” she said. “Everyone should have access to hearing support if necessary because it will enhance their quality of life.”

Currently, most insurers pay for a hearing test, but since coverage for your hearing aid isn’t guaranteed, there’s a way you can participate in this effort to make hearing aids more easily accessible.

“If you want to have any sort of coverage toward hearing aids, you can write to your state rep to let them know this is something state reps should be endorsing,” Brudereck said.

Patients range in age

Hearing loss can happen at birth through any age, so this isn’t a topic that applies solely to those who might be experiencing age-related hearing loss.

“Our patients range through their lifespan,” she said. “Someone could need a hearing aid at any point that they have hearing loss. If we determine there is a hearing loss present we will recommend further treatment if needed, such as medication, hearing aids or even a surgery, such as a cochlear implant.”

Age-related hearing loss can start in your 50s or 60s.

“Sometimes it’s hereditary or noise exposure,” Brudereck said. “There are a lot of things throughout life we’re exposed to that could cause hearing loss.”

Being around loud equipment, gunfire when hunting, shooting practice and music are some types of noise exposure that can contribute to hearing loss.

“Our rule of thumb is that if you have to shout to be heard over top of it, you should be protecting your ears,” she said.

How to protect yourself

There is action you can take to protect yourself in such situations.

“It’s important to wear foam plugs or over-the-ear hearing protection anytime you are exposed to loud noises,” Brudereck said.

For National Protect Your Hearing Month, which takes place during the month of October, the Centers for Disease Control reminds us that there is no cure for hearing loss.

“Avoid loud noise whenever possible and turn down the volume on personal listening devices,” the CDC states on their website. “If you can’t avoid loud noise, use earplugs or earmuffs to protect your ears. If you suspect you may already have hearing loss, take steps to keep it from getting worse.”

Degeneration of hearing starts from the time you’re young and around noisy environments. Brudereck finds that adults are more mindful of children these days than themselves.

“People are getting better at looking out for kids to protect them at concerts and sporting events,” she said. “If they feel like their kids should be protected, they should be protected as well.”

Hearing loss for anyone can’t be identified unless you’re tested.

“You don’t know if you have a hearing loss if you don’t have your hearing tested,” she said. “Most were last tested when they were in high school.”

Brudereck said they go to the effort at Berks Hearing Professionals to send out cards to serve as a reminder.

“It says, ‘You had your eyes tested and your teeth cleaned — when was the last time you had your hearing tested?’” she said.

Hearing loss and dementia

Brudereck referred to a study out of Johns Hopkins that found a relationship between hearing loss and dementia.

“It showed over a long term that even people with mild hearing loss are more likely to develop memory loss because of untreated hearing loss,” she said. “When you start to develop hearing loss, your brain doesn’t use that part of memory as often that is needed to remember certain sounds.”

The study found the likelihood of dementia increased as the severity of hearing loss increased.

“In a study that tracked 639 adults for nearly 12 years, Johns Hopkins expert Dr. Frank Lin, M.D., Ph.D., and his colleagues found that mild hearing loss doubled dementia risk,” John Hopkins Medicine states on their website. “Moderate loss tripled risk, and people with a severe hearing impairment were five times more likely to develop dementia.”

The results of this study make it clear that the hidden risks of hearing loss can impact your quality of life down the road if ignored.

“We have people who come in to get a hearing aid and say they will only use it as needed, but by three or four years in, they rely on the hearing aids,” she said. “They realize how much easier it is for them to hear conversation and they recognize how much better they are doing with the hearing aids.”

App-capable hearing aids

Brudereck said that some might choose not to wear a hearing aid and ride out hearing loss, but others will take any help they can get. In some cases, the hearing device itself is a turn-off, but Brudereck said aids have come a long way in the last decade.

“They are a lot less noticeable than they used to be,” she said. “Now they are bluetooth, everything is wireless and the processing is better.”

The hearing aids of today are even app-capable, which allows the wearer to control the aid to some degree.

“They have more control over the hearing aids than they ever did before,” Brudereck said. “They can turn them up or down and make minor adjustments to the hearing aids in different environments.”

Hearing aids can be easily linked into your phone or TV.

“You can stream from your phone right to the hearing aid since they are bluetooth capable,” she said. “You can connect to a TV wirelessly, as well.”

Color choices improving

Another advancement in hearing aids has to do with how they look and the wider variety of colors and styles they are offered in.

“The colors are becoming fun now,” she said. “It used to be that adults couldn’t get the fun colors and only kids could, but now they are going to have pink, blue and green for adults that don’t want something boring behind their ears.”

Hearing aids of the past have typically been beige, brown, gray and white in an effort to camouflage them with the color of skin, but the color offerings of today reflect a change in the times.

“People want to express themselves in all different ways and that includes their hearing aids, glasses and braces,” Brudereck said.

For those wearing hearing aids who might want to conceal it, there is a different route they can go these days over matching their skin tone.

“Now they are making hearing aids in black, so they look more like an earbud, so people can’t tell they are wearing a hearing aid,” she said.

Over the 22 years that Brudereck has been in practice, she has seen technology play a big role in the aids she used to adjust using tiny screwdrivers.

“The fact that we can connect them to a cell phone and the patient can make adjustments on their own is a big advancement,” she said. “We have come such a long way with technology in the last 10 years.”

Berks Hearing, which is in the process of a name change to Live Better Hearing, has locations in Wyomissing and Exeter Township. They offer comprehensive hearing and tinnitus evaluations and the latest hearing aid technology and tinnitus treatments. For more information, visit www.berkshearing.com.

The CDC supports National Protect Your Hearing Month (#NPYHM). It is an annual event each October to provide an opportunity to raise awareness about hearing.

People are encouraged to think about their own hearing, and to get their hearing checked if they think there might be a problem. Early identification and intervention for hearing loss is important. Many people live with unidentified hearing loss, often failing to realize that they are missing certain sounds and words. Checking one’s hearing would be the first step toward addressing the issue. Do you use your music, your show or a podcast to shut out the noise around you? Be cautious, hearing loss is real. A volume that lets you hear someone a few feet away is a safer way to go.