The phone started ringing at about 2 a.m. I think I picked it up with the second ring. It was the hospital, and I was needed. Not an emergency, but urgently. I got up, grabbed socks, scrubs, and my lucky “surgery shoes” before washing up and kissing my now wide awake wife goodbye.
I was always amazed that she was wide awake when I got ready to leave for one of my early morning calls. I found out the reason for that 10 years later when I was fitted with my first hearing aids. I had always complained—or should I say my wife had always complained—that I always asked people to repeat themselves. The first night with those hearing aids was ear-opening.
The phone rang, this time at about 3 a.m. I put my hearing aids in and went through my routine. This time, my wife was sound asleep as I left. I had never noticed just how loud everything was. I never knew the drawers could make so much noise when they were closed or that just walking on hardwood floors actually makes a sound. My sweet wife later told me that she thought I was just being passive-aggressive by making all that noise in the morning. Both of us soon realized that I had never heard how much noise I was making. I had never heard what she heard.
Adult men are twice as likely to have hearing loss than women. According to the National Institute of Deafness and Other Common Disorders (NIDC), 8.5 percent of adults aged between 55 and 64 have disabling hearing loss. Those numbers dramatically increase to 25 percent for those aged between 65 and 75. About 28 million Americans could benefit from hearing aids, according to the NIDC.
As early as the 13th century, people with hearing loss used hollowed-out animal horns to try to capture more sound. The ear trumpet was invented in the 18th century, which was an improvement from the simple ram’s horn.
In 1819, the almost-deaf king of Portugal had a special acoustic hearing chair constructed. This ornate chair had what looked like the open mouth of a lion on each of those arms. These open mouths were actually the receiving end of the acoustic sound—just like the large opening of an ear trumpet—which was transmitted by tubes to the back of the chair by the king’s ears.
Ludwig Van Beethoven used an ear trumpet as he was going deaf later in his life.
Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone led the way to the development of the first modern hearing aid. It’s of interest to note that both Bell’s mother and wife had significant hearing loss. His mother had to use an ear trumpet, while his wife Mable was also mostly deaf and relied on lip reading to communicate. Neither his wife nor mother was able to use his great invention.
People with hearing loss soon noticed that they could actually hear a person better on the phone than in person. Thomas Edison, who suffered from hearing loss, developed a carbon transmitter for the telephone that amplified the electric signal.
In 1898, Miller Reese Hutchison invented the first electric hearing aid. This was the simple amplification of a weak signal. 1913 saw the first commercially available hearing aids, which were very bulky and not very practicable. Seven years later, vacuum tubes were able to turn speech into electric signals that were then amplified.
The transistor, invented in 1948, allowed for miniaturization and replaced the bulky vacuum tubes. Over the next several decades, advances in miniaturization improved the wearability and effectiveness of hearing aids. Today, we have Bluetooth-enabled devices.
According to a 2020 report on dementia prevention and care from the Lancet Commission, age-related hearing loss is the largest modifiable risk factor for dementia. Midlife hearing loss accounts for 8.2 percent of all dementia cases. The vast majority of people, roughly 80 percent, fail to seek any treatment.
“Whether treating hearing loss would slow or stop the progression to dementia remains to be seen,” he wrote.
According to Chern, there’s some evidence that hearing aids may protect some people with mild hearing loss, but the data is mixed.
“Correcting hearing loss is an intervention that has evidence behind it, and we hope our research will help clinicians and people with hearing loss understand the potential association between getting a hearing aid and other aspects of their health,” the study authors said.
Hearing loss progresses over time. Protecting your ears when you’re young is vital and may become more so as we age. It’s always good to ask, “Do you hear something I don’t?” And if the answer is “Yes,” you should fix it.
“Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people,” according to Helen Keller.
