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Untreated Hearing Loss & Cognitive Decline, and Making Our Communities Acoustically Accessible Above and Beyond Hearing Aids

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I wrote an article, "Help Us Hear, O Israel," which is now available in The Times of Israel.

Untreated hearing loss affects millions of older adults, yet it is an invisible epidemic—often hidden due to deep-seated social stigmas or ignored and dismissed as a simple inconvenience. But hearing health is brain health. In addition, when communal spaces, lecture halls, and houses of worship are acoustically hostile, we actively isolate a vulnerable demographic and accelerate cognitive decline.

The article presents the clinical data and provides a communal and individual blueprint for change in order to better serve our aging population. 

Please read and share it with anyone who is navigating hearing loss, caring for aging parents, or in charge of community spaces.

🔗 Full article link: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/help-us-hear-o-israel/6

This is a good article. So often, hearing loss is considered and individual problem and it is up to us to build up our hearing with whatever devices we can afford. In the state I live in the U.S. our legislature has passed a law recently that requires movie theaters to provide open captions of films where there is four or more showings a week. They only have to provide one a week but that is an improvement. Many of the concert halls and theaters I have attended have only antiquated headphones with merely some amplification. Some however have and app which provides blue tooth connection through a smart phone and directly to the hearing aids. I have been advocating at a museum for better hearing assistance for lectures and films. So far, they have only implemented sign language at some events. The health insurance I had last year dropped their hearing aid coverage for this year. Some offer a pittance toward the cost of hearing aids. I agree that it should be taken more seriously and funded the way the V.A. funds hearing loss care and devices.

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