Hearing loss affects your ability to communicate with family and friends and can affect performance at work and at school.

One area that has not received a great deal of attention is the effect of hearing loss on the people around the person with the loss. Can hearing loss interfere with personal relationships? Do the communication difficulties affect relationships with wife or husband, children and friends?

Research shows that hearing loss has significant effects on family relationships. Ironically, the closer the relationship, the greater the effects of the hearing loss. These effects can be categorized according to efforts to deny and efforts to cope with the hearing loss.

Denial

It's not unusual for someone to wait five, 10 or even 20 years to seek help for his or her hearing loss. During this time, the person and the family may engage in compromises and arguments as they try to deal with a hearing loss that hasn't been acknowledged. ("What do you mean I don't hear? I would hear if everybody didn't mumble all the time!") One man insisted he would hear the doorbell if people would only press it hard enough!

Why do people have such a hard time accepting they may have a hearing loss? Stigma. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to accepting hearing loss is that many people are embarrassed by it. The fact that a person's ears are not hearing normally is embarrassing to some people, while the need for eyeglasses is not.

Hearing loss can threaten a person's self-image, making it difficult to accept the idea of hearing loss. These concerns appear more pronounced in men than in women. In addition, because hearing loss is invisible, the person may feel he or she is the only one with hearing loss. Actually, it's the third most common health problem!

Gradual. Hearing loss usually develops so gradually that the person is not aware of any change. Realization usually comes only after the repeated complaints of family, friends and co-workers - yet those same complaints may make the individuals defensive and unwilling to listen! Instead, the person may say. "I would hear the television fine if you didn't set the volume so low," or "It's just that these new telephones don't work as well as older phones.

During the denial stage, family members may become as irritated at the refusal of the person to do something as at the hearing difficulties themselves. Stress, friction and arguments can be the result. ("You can hear me when you want to!")

Coping

Once hearing loss has been acknowledged, efforts to minimize the effects of the loss can begin. With proper help, the person with the hearing loss usually can watch television at a normal volume, hear family and friends more effectively and with less effort, and ask people to repeat less often. All these improvements make life easier for family and friends.

Nevertheless, some communication difficulties remain. The person with the hearing loss will still need people to repeat themselves occasionally, or may not be able to hear a waiter in a noisy restaurant.

Because of these communication breakdowns, family members may get impatient. They may also reduce their frequency of interaction and tend not to talk about unimportant matters because "it's not worth the effort."

In social situations, the normal hearing spouse may act as an interpreter or intermediary in order to help the spouse keep up with conversations. However, these efforts can interfere with the husband-wife relationship because of the change from previous, more independent roles.

Summary

Hearing loss has significant effects on the individual's family and on relationships with family members. When seeking help, the effects of the hearing loss on family members and on the person with the loss should be considered.

Contributed by Andy Waits, Clinical Audiology of Waits Hearing Aid Center.

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