Recently, I decided it was time to deal with age-related hearing loss, known medically as presbycusis. Such loss is very common, perhaps more common than most know. About one in six over the age of 18 have some form of hearing loss.
In my early years of teaching physics, I would run a basic class hearing test with an audio frequency signal generator. Nothing was calibrated, and I was just using a cheap speaker. The test was simple: keep your hand raised as long as you hear the signal as the frequency is increased. Mine was the first to come down. By the age of 30 or so, I was not hearing much over 10 kHz. Some students could hear right up to 20 kHz.
Nothing unusual there. Frequency response for human hearing pretty much begins to decline right from birth. By the time we get to 65, about one in three have noticeable hearing loss that results in lost information. Over age 75, that one in three figure reaches one in two. Half of all people over 75 have measurable and significant hearing loss.
Since hearing loss is gradual and continuous for many, we often aren’t aware of it, spread out as it is over decades. Those who become aware of their hearing loss often wait a decade or more before taking any remedial action.
In my own case, I also experience tinnitus, a condition I’ve been aware of since childhood. This condition worsened somewhat when I built a complex retaining wall system with a chainsaw while using less than adequate hearing protection. Fortunately, I am not affected negatively by the tinnitus. It is there, but I ignore it. Many are not so fortunate. It can be debilitating for some. I’m also immune to ads that claim breakthrough cures for tinnitus. They are nonsense, but that’s another story altogether.
It’s no wonder, given the prevalence of hearing loss and conditions such as tinnitus, that there are dozens of hearing clinics across Metro Vancouver. There is money to be made in selling devices to combat or manage hearing loss, and there is money to be made peddling wacky cures for tinnitus, not that I am linking these two.
I am at the exploratory stage of acquiring some form of hearing assistance. I’ve been to two clinics recently. Both used an audio isolation booth to run various hearing tests. More than 30 years ago, I had a similar hearing test conducted by an ENT doctor with a special focus on audiology. Yes, I had high-frequency hearing loss then, symmetrical (same in both ears), consistent with typical age-related fall-off in hearing.
This time I first visited a typical hearing aid business advertising a huge discount and a free coffee card. The booth test consisted of various tones and varying intensities, along with a test using phrases I had to repeat. These phrases contained one or more words that are easy to confuse with other words. Yes, as for the test conducted three decades ago, I indeed had hearing loss, better characterized now as moderate rather than mild. And I had difficulty with those phrases.
Data from the hearing test was passed over to another person who I will characterize as the sale closer. This person loaded that data into a computer and quickly prepared a hearing aid, in my case, a behind-the-ear style with a receiver in the ear canal (BTE RIC), by loading a spectral program to match areas where my loss was measurable.
There was some hand-waving discussion about the ear and how hearing loss occurs, and the person had me try the phrase test again before having me repeat it again with a single hearing aid in place. The difference was profound. I was impressed. Perhaps even hooked.
Time to talk price. A well-worn card was brought out with the typical good-better-best range of models and prices: $7,400 for the model supposedly best suited to me!
“And that’s with the $3,000 ‘special discount’ sale price?” I asked.
“Yes,” came the reply.
Since the card looked well used, the price quoted must have been the usual one.
“Why on earth,” I protested, “should something with a few hundred dollars’ worth of electronic components, at best, cost so much?”
Of course, the comeback was in terms of “extensive research and development” but also a tacit admission that the salesperson was getting a big cut.
There’s something wrong when a necessary medical device, albeit not one for a life-threatening condition, costs so much. I suppose it is like the eyeglasses industry, where a couple of companies effectively control much of the market.
There was, however, no pressure to buy, and the salesperson did not follow up with a promised phone call after the weekend. That was a surprise to me.
From what I could tell, this business depended entirely on selling hearing aids. Perhaps there is additional revenue from replacement batteries, repairs – if indeed these are available – and maybe reprogramming as hearing loss changes over time.
In a follow-up column I will cover my second recent hearing test and a trial run with hearing aids, which led to both positive and negative experiences.
Hearing aids require adaptation, and they must be able to do more than amplify all sounds equally. They can be amazing at mitigating the effects of hearing loss, but they can be incredibly frustrating as well.
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