Cultural Views

In our culture, hearing loss has been viewed as something of a stigma. Part of the reason few people with hearing loss get help is that we simply don't talk about it. It's a sign of advancing age. Yet, like impaired vision, it is one of the most common health problems in the U.K. as well as worldwide.

Unlike impaired vision, hearing loss is often made fun of. People with hearing loss often have to deal with the perception that their intelligence or grasp on reality is unsound, simply because they don't hear something correctly.

The analogy to impaired vision is important, because hearing loss is such a similar phenomenon. The way both hearing loss and vision impairment are diagnosed (by a doctor or a technician), treated (with hardware that compensates for the loss) and dispensed (by trained clinicians, typically outside the “medical” sphere) is strikingly similar.

Yet eyeglasses are free of stigma--indeed, they're a fashion statement--while hearing instruments continue to be seen as undesirable. One reason is that people understand the physiology behind poor eyesight more clearly than that of poor hearing. Another reason is that eyeglasses have been around a lot longer. But it's only a matter of time before hearing instruments catch up.

That shift is now taking place, as an ever-younger group of people experience hearing loss and seek treatment. These changing demographics are helping to bring a very mainstream complaint into the popular dialog.

Click here to view demographic facts about who has hearing loss and why.

Click here to see common myths about hearing loss.