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DALLAS (AP) – As nurse Teri Wheat toured a maternity hospital in Texas, she began to realize that she was struggling to understand new mothers wearing masks due to the coronavirus pandemic.
So she had her hearing tested and now wears hearing aids.
Her hearing loss “became more noticeable as we had to have barriers,” said Wheat, 52, who wears a mask and face shield at work to protect himself and others from the virus.
Hearing specialists across the United States say they have seen an increase in visits from people like Wheat, who have realized how much they relied on lip reading and facial expressions when people started wearing masks covering the nose and mouth.
“More than likely, these are people who had some sort of hearing loss before all of this, but who were adjusting,” said Andrea Gohmert, director of the University of Texas Hearing Clinic at the Callier Center for Communication Disorders at Dallas.
Most of the time, hearing loss occurs gradually and people often wait around seven years to get tested, according to audiologists, the professionals who assess hearing.
“We would have finally seen these people, but it could have been in a few years,” said Catherine Palmer, director of audiology for the UPMC Health System in Western Pennsylvania.
Wheat, who had her hearing tested at the Callier Center in August, said that even before the pandemic, she frequently asked her children to repeat what they said, and people showed her how much she listened to programs on his computer or his television. But, she said, her hearing loss had not been obvious to her.
Audiologists say it’s not just the lack of visual cues that makes hearing difficult: masks and plastic barriers reduce noise levels as well. And standing closer to the person you’re talking to – another coping mechanism – has also been ruled out in most settings due to social distancing recommendations. during the pandemic.
Palmer, who just finished a term as president of the American Academy of Audiology, said people with normal hearing can cope if voices are a bit muffled, but those with hearing loss have much more. of badness.
Nancy Tye-Murray, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said the visual is a “powerful adjunct” to hearing.
“Most people with hearing loss don’t realize that they depend on it so much, and even people with normal hearing depend on it, for example, when you’re in a noisy restaurant,” Tye-Murray said.
Palmer said adults can usually fill in the blanks and find words they can’t hear, but it’s exhausting.
Lorie D’Elia, audiologist at Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, said that once people are fitted with hearing aids, they realize that “a great deal part of this listening effort is suppressed.
Palmer said even people who already had hearing aids came during the pandemic to adjust them to deal with the difference in sound caused by the new barriers.
She said the masks have created another problem for hearing aid wearers – they lose or damage their hearing aids when caught and knocked over by the earrings.
Then there are the dogs adopted during the pandemic chewing or swallowing hearing aids, she says.
“Unfortunately, we are currently replacing a lot of hearing aids,” said Palmer.
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