Hearing Loss Travel Tips

Gael Hannan, editor from The Better Hearing Consumer , wrote an excellent article about hearing loss travel tips. The article above has been adapted from her original at Hearing Health Matters.

Does your hearing loss prevent you from traveling, worrying about potential problems on the trip? Get over it – communication problems can happen anywhere – including at home.

Everywhere you go, you take your hearing loss with you. Probably it’s your most faithful, although not favorite, travel companion, with barriers popping up at every turn – when calling a taxi, checking in to a hotel, ordering food in noisy restaurants, or talking with people whose foreign-accented lips make speechreading just a tad challenging. 

Here are a few basic travel communication strategies to kick down a lot of those barriers:

Self-identify! This is a no-brainer rule of the road that travelers ignore at their peril. If you don’t let people know you have hearing loss, you won’t get what you need, and therefore you have no right to get upset at poor or inaccessible service. Contrary to popular belief, most hearing people and tourism/hospitality people are not mind readers.

Clearly communicate your needs. (I know, I hear ya, ‘oh-duh-please-tell-me-something-I-don’t-already-know’ . But hey, this is worth repeating.) If you say, “I’m hard of hearing” and leave it at that, the hotel clerk might just think, “Well, that’s nice, thanks for sharing.” Be specific about what you need – amplification, captioning, etc. Providers sometimes call these ‘special needs’, which makes me crazy. Good communication skills, amplification and print interpretation are not ‘special’; they are fundamental needs of a huge chunk of today’s population.

Let Them Know You’re Coming! When making online bookings for hotel, air or rail, you should check off the Hard of Hearing (or Hearing Loss) box under ‘Special Needs’ (sigh). This may or may not result in better service. Sometimes “DEAF” or “HARD OF HEARING” is marked on the boarding pass, sometimes not. When it is marked, or if you verbally self-identify to the customer service person, he or she may look up you, all startled-like: “OMG, how am I supposed to talk to this deaf person?” Just smile and wait to see what they offer.

Sometimes it’s early boarding along with the babies and the infirm. I’ve heard of people receiving seat upgrades, although I’m not sure how this helps people with hearing loss, unless flight attendants speak more clearly in first class. Or they may tell you to have a seat in the lounge, and they will visually alert you when it’s your turn to board. In this case, if I have nothing else to do, or am feeling feisty, I sit close by and don’t take my eyes off them, unblinking, unrelenting, willing them to give me ‘the wave’. This might creep them out enough to get you an early boarding. Brilliant idea: airports could reduce traveler anxiety and employee stress by using signage to announce which rows are being boarded!

However you do it, your bottom line is that you have to be on that plane when it takes off. I almost missed a flight once because I’d lost track of time, wandering the airport, and didn’t hear the PA calling my name. Now I arrive at the gate well in advance.

The final word: Anticipating communication needs makes for a much smoother trip. I couldn’t prepare for being in the eye of a tropical cyclone, but emergency preparedness has come a long way since then – especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Minor glitches like these aside, traveling is one of life’s joys, so pack your bag amd kick down some barriers.

Hearing Aid - My American Girl

Thank you Mattel (who owns American Girl) for recognizing hearing loss as a condition affecting millions of children, by developing Hearing Aids to personalize My American Girl. 

3 in 1000 babies are born each year with permanent hearing loss, according to the American Speech Language Hearing Association, making it one of the most common birth defects in America. 

It is very important to create a greater awareness of hearing loss and helping others to have more comfort and acceptance. Helping a child with hearing loss to wear hearing devices can begin with them feeling confident. 

What a wonderful initiative!

It's all gone Pete Tong - how to be a DJ with a hearing disorder

"Its All Gone Pete Tong" is a comedy based on a true story and Winner of Best Feature Film at Toronto Film Festival and Gen Art Film Festival. Paul Kaye stars as Frankie Wilde, the legendary British DJ and musical mastermind of the underground club scene whose career is cut down at its pinnacle by unthinkable tragedy - the loss of his hearing. 

The story takes us through Frankie's battle with his hearing disorder: he is rapidly going deaf with only one functioning ear to complete the new Ibiza season. Frankie dives into a low period, struggling with deafness in utter depression. After a year of locking himself away he emerges on the other side with a fresh attitude towards his affliction. He accepts his deafness and learns to function without sound. Will Frankie make it back to the DJ booth? Will his new single be any good? Will he get back his opulent old life or does he even want it back? When you can't hear, things look very different.

Info from Amazon and IMDb

Tinnitus (Ringing in the Ear)

One well-known effect of overexposure to noise is hearing loss, or the inability to hear certain sounds. But another risk is a phenomenon that is just the opposite: perceiving sounds when there are none. This perception of sound when no external sound is present is called tinnitus, or "ringing in the ear." 

What Does Tinnitus Sound Like? 

People with tinnitus hear noises in their ears. Each person with tinnitus experiences it differently. "Tinnitus" is from the Latin word for "ringing," and to some people the noise does indeed sound like ringing. Others describe their ear noise as roaring, rushing, hissing, chirping, beeping, buzzing, whistling, or clicking. The sound might be high-pitched, low-pitched, or multi-toned, or it might sound like static. It might seem to be in one ear, both ears, or inside the head. The sound might be constant, or it might come and go. It might be just barely noticeable, or it might seem screamingly loud. 

Nearly everyone experiences ear noise; in total silence, most people will report hearing faint buzzing, pulsing, or whirring sounds, the normal compensatory activity of the nerves in the hearing pathway. It's when these sounds are intrusive that it becomes tinnitus. 

What Causes Tinnitus? 

Tinnitus may be caused by various drugs, ear disorders, infections, injuries, or psychiatric disorders, but the most common cause by far is loud noise, such as from explosions, gunfire, amplified music, farm machinery, or emergency sirens. Many rock musicians develop tinnitus, and it is common among combat veterans. Ninety percent of people with tinnitus also have some degree of hearing loss. 

Like hearing loss, tinnitus can occur temporarily, brought on by an episode of too much noise, or it may happen after years of overexposure to noise. It can appear suddenly or gradually. 

What Is It Like to Have Tinnitus? 

Tinnitus is a subjective experience. Similar to the experience of pain, the annoyance of tinnitus cannot be measured objectively. Some people hardly notice the noise unless they consciously turn their attention to it. For others it may disrupt sleep and concentration, and can cause depression and emotional shifts. According to the American Tinnitus Association, about 25% of those with tinnitus find it disturbing enough that they seek medical attention for it, and for about 4% of sufferers, it is so debilitating that it seriously interferes with normal daily functioning. For a few people the experience is so agonizing that they are driven to consider suicide. 

How Is Tinnitus Treated? 

Tinnitus is a symptom, not a disease, and there is no cure. Even in some cases where the auditory nerves have been severed (during the removal of a tumor from the inner ear, for example), so that the patient loses all physical hearing, tinnitus can persist. 

There are a range of treatment options for chronic tinnitus; no one treatment works for everyone. Many treatments focus on helping the person learn to coexist with it, using a variety of stress management and relaxation techniques, counseling, and sometimes antidepressants or other drugs. Some people find it helpful to mask the ringing in the ear by using white noise, and there are in-ear white noise devices made for this purpose. 

Two treatments, tinnitus retraining therapy and Neuromonics, combine directive counseling with white noise or music that is individually engineered for the patient's audiological profile, to teach the brain circuitry to filter out the tinnitus signals. These treatments take six months to two years and cost several thousand dollars. 

Temporary Ringing in the Ear? 

If you experience temporary ringing of the ears from an exposure to loud noise, consider it a warning sign. First, immediately leave the loud environment, or put in ear plugs if that is not possible. Next, rest your ears for 24 hours, meaning no loud sounds at all, to give your ears a chance to recover. And lastly, next time you are in a similar environment in the future, be sure to wear hearing protection. There are plenty of tinnitus sufferers who will tell you that you don't want their nightmare. 

From NoiseHelp

MARVEL designed a superhero to help a 4-year-old with hearing loss

A 4-year-old boy in Salem who decided he did not want to wear his blue hearing aid to school anymore received some new inspiration after Marvel Comics designed a superhero after him.

Christina D’Allesandro said her son Anthony Smith cannot hear out of his right ear and has hearing loss in his left ear. She said Anthony woke up one day and decided that he did not want to wear his blue hearing aid.

“Basically, one day he woke up and I said, ‘OK, time to put in your hearing aid,’ and said, ‘Let’s put in blue ear.’ We’ve always called it that. And he said, ‘No, superheroes don’t wear blue ears,’” D’Allesandro said.

D’Allesandro assured her son that superheroes did wear hearing aids. She said she wanted to make sure, so she emailed the experts at Marvel Comics in New York City. Marvel sent back a comic book cover featuring Hawkeye, a superhero who lost his hearing. D’Allesandro said her son was captivated by the image. Marvel then sent a drawing of a new superhero inspired by Anthony: Blue Ear. Another sketch arrived portraying Hawkeye and Blue Ear together.

Anthony’s grandfather, N.H. Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, said he was happy to hear of Marvel’s help.

“This is a feel-good moment. This is a feel-good story, and we’ve got to get the world to recognize that,” he said.

Christina D’Allesandro said Anthony, like Blue Ear, is proud to wear his hearing aid and share his good news with others at his school for children with hearing loss. The school had a superhero week, and a costume has been ordered for Anthony. D’Allesandro said she hopes to finally meet and thank the heroes at Marvel Comics someday.

Info accessed at Hearing Aid Center

Seven Tips to Better Communication by Arlene Romoff

Holiday season can be especially difficult for people with hearingloss. Here are Seven Tips to Better Communication,

- for those with hearing loss

- for those who contact in the daily life with people with hearing loss, and that can also improve their communicative processes.

1. Realize that large social groups, especially around a large dining room table, are one of the most difficult environments for a person with a hearing loss.

Be kind to yourself. Focus on the positive things that you can do, and not on the negatives of what you have difficulty doing. Think the glass is half full, not half empty.

2. It’s easier to talk with people one-on-one in a quiet environment than in a noisy living room. So:

• Find a favorite friend or relative, and move the conversation into a quiet room, or a quieter corner. Or play a game or read a story to a child, if that’s an option.
• Help out in the kitchen where there are usually less people gathered. And if you help with some preparations, you'll be doing something besides trying to hear

3. When sitting down to dinner, make sure you choose a seat that is best for you!

Here are some seating suggestions:

• If you have a “better side,” seat yourself so that most people are on that side. • Seat yourself next to a person you usually have the least difficulty hearing or lipreading (avoid those folks with bushy mustaches and beards!)
• Seat yourself next to someone who usually has the patience to clue you in on what the conversation is about, or the punch lines you'll miss.
• Try not to seat yourself facing a window because the glare could make it difficult to see people's faces.
• Ask your host to turn off any background music during dinner. And if a football game is blaring from a TV, turn it off or if that’s not an option, set it on mute.
• Remember to be assertive about your needs! Pleasant and polite, but assertive!

4. Conversation tips:

• It’s inevitable that you will not be able to hear the conversation with many people talking and laughing at once. Content yourself with speaking with the people on either side of you.
• If you start a conversation, then you’ll know what the topic is, so it will be easier to follow.
• If you miss something, try to ask only for the part you missed, instead of just saying “what?”
• Expect that there will be jokes that you will not hear, so you will find yourself sitting at a table where everyone is laughing except you. Stay calm—you have a few options: — ask the person next to you to tell you what was so funny — ask the person next to you to remember what was so funny so they can tell you later. — say “excuse me” to everyone at the table, and ask for the joke to be repeated so you can get it too. Remember that if you do this with a pleasant attitude, then people will usually want to help you out.

5. After–dinner strategies:

• Volunteer to help out in the kitchen to get yourself away from that dining table with all the conversations and jokes you’re having trouble following. Do not offer to wash the dishes! This will put your back to everyone in the kitchen and you won't be able to lipread. Offer to dry the dishes or put food away. Or just keep everyone company.
• Offer to wash the dishes if you want to take time out from trying to hear everyone, and you still want to feel useful.

6. To drink or not to drink?

Some people's lipreading skills tend to get worse when they drink. Some people's lip-reading skills tend to get better when they drink because they're more relaxed. And, of course, there are pros and cons of drinking that impact on mood. Be aware of what works best for you. And remember, if you do drink, do so responsibly and never drink and drive.

7. Assistive listening devices.

There are assistive listening devices, such as personal amplifiers and auxiliary microphones that can help you hear in noisy environments. These can work either in conjunction with your hearing aid or cochlear implant, or directly into your ears. They have been particularly helpful for older relatives who are left out of the loop in large family gatherings.

Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season!

Info at Seven Tips for Better Communication

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