People need to be more open and honest about hearing difficulties - Emily Woodmansey

The study showed that people are often too embarrassed to ask someone to repeat themselves more than twice and then pretend to have heard what was said. 49 per cent also admitted that mishearing what someone has said is a common occurrence, but people are too embarrassed to own up and ask again to avoid making a situation awkward.

This is something that we find so common, and partly results in people avoiding admitting they are having difficulties hearing. Background noise and busy areas cause the most difficulties, as people don’t like raising their voices, but with the stats so high, it is clearly affecting a significant number of people.

What is most concerning is a fifth of the respondents admitting to avoiding socialising as a result of this. If situations become too frequent it is embarrassing to own up to struggling, but with technology involved in hearing aids these days, it doesn’t need to be like this.

Overcoming the barrier of admitting someone needs help is the biggest challenge, because once we get people in the clinic, they can see for themselves the difference we can make to their lives. What is clearly evident from this study is the extent to which people are struggling unnecessarily. None of us like to admit we are having difficulties, it is the same with people avoiding wearing glasses, and doesn’t necessarily mean we are getting older. Both hearing and visual challenges can happen at any point in someone’s life.

Restricting someone’s ability to socialise though, directly affects their quality of life, and impacts their relationships. This in itself can result in other challenges like depression and isolation. We not only help people with hearing aids to prevent this, but also provide lip reading classes and look at the bigger picture to improve their lives overall.

I recently discovered an app called NALscribe, which is a speech captioning tool, which is easy to use and helps people with hearing difficulties understand speech and conversations through transcribing them. It was a winner in the Hearing Health and Technology Matters Innovation award last year and can benefit people in a number of ways. You not only have the ability to read what someone has just said to you, but it also saves the conversation. This can be useful in so many situations, including doctor’s appointments and when someone needs to relay what they have been talking about to someone else too.

What we need people to do is be more open and honest if they are having hearing difficulties, because it could result in serious or dangerous outcomes, and can be resolved so easily and discreetly. We have three clinics across the region and are happy to have introductory conversations with anyone who is concerned about their hearing, in a friendly and relaxed setting. No one should restrict their activities because of hearing challenges – help is available and close by.

Emily Woodmansey is the managing director of The Hearing Suite.