Stop Mumbling!

There is a potentially devastating part of hearing loss that no one is talking about. Current thinking among an estimated 28 million of the hearing impaired is that hearing loss can be corrected fully and completely at any time. I can't tell you how wrong that thinking is.

If you don't feed the brain the correct stimulus with good clear sound because there is hearing loss, then the brain becomes weaker and weaker in its ability to understand sound. This is called auditory deprivation. Eventually no matter how much sound amplification you get, your brain is not able to make sense of it.

Can you imagine how awful that would be?? You hear the sound but can't understand the words. All of a sudden the whole world is mumbling!

This happened to my granddad. He always thought he would get hearing aids later. Unfortunately when later came he had not only lost his eyesight but there was nothing that could be done to correct his hearing loss because he had deprived his brain of good clear sound for so many years. It was like being buried alive for the last 7 years of his life because he couldn't see or hear. He was isolated and very lonely. It was awful. Don't let this happen to you!

Teri James Bellis PH.D. put it very well in her excellent book 'When The Brain Can't Hear.' She states "As sound travels through an imperfect auditory pathway, words spoken become jumbled and unintelligible. One of the most common complaints is that although speech may sound loud enough the hearing impaired still have a difficult time actually understanding what is said. Everyone seems to be mumbling." Dr Bellis goes on to describe how frustrating it is for the listener because family often end up yelling at them to try to communicate. It is equally frustrating for the family because they think that they are being ignored when in fact their loved one simply can't hear them.

The damage that has occurred is usually a result of damaged hair cells in the cochlea in the inner ear. The sound that is given to the brain to process is incomplete or distorted.

Just like any other health problem if you catch the problem and correct it in the early stages you will have better results than if you wait. Each year that you ignore your hearing loss you are losing more and more of your ability to process sound because of auditory deprivation.