Hear Well for the Holidays
By Sabrina Lee, Au.D., CCC-A
The end of the year is full of holidays—occasions for family and friends to gather, reminisce, and share their hopes for the next 12 months. But as we get together this year, it’s important to understand that some of the people we’re celebrating with need to do a little more work in order to enjoy the company they’re keeping. This is because—chances are—someone in the group experiences hearing loss.
Statistically speaking, half of grandparents and great-grandparents have significant hearing loss. So do about one in 10 of the aunts, uncles, or adult friends ages 55 to 64. Plus, we know that among adults exposed to loud noise—at work or in everyday life—about one in five has a hard time hearing speech. This can be a real hindrance to enjoying the holidays when all we want to do is connect with one another and share life’s joys.
Tips for Better Hearing
If you’re hosting this season, remember that you can create a pleasant holiday environment, while also keeping a good hearing environment. Here are a few tips:
Pay attention to lighting. Good lighting makes it easier for those with hearing loss to see people clearly when they speak and recognize facial clues about what they’re saying. Candles, colored lights, and ambience are tempting around the holidays, but can negatively affect communication.
Turn down the volume. Hearing loss often manifests itself as a struggle to perceive conversations in the presence of noise. You don’t have to eliminate background sound, but maybe keep holiday music or games on TV to a lower volume with captions on. Chances are, everyone will appreciate it.
Plan a quiet, festive sanctuary. Anticipating festive noise, create a warm, quiet room where those with hearing loss can gather comfortably with friends and family. It’s not always possible to reduce noise completely when everyone comes together, but having at least one space where people can go to unwind from the party can help reduce listening fatigue. And if that one friend or relative wants to nap in a comfortable chair after a big meal, all the better.
Seat those with hearing loss in the middle seat of a long table so they can hear better. Credit: @alelmes/Unsplash
Facilitate easier conversation. When it comes to holiday meals, seat those with hearing loss where they’re most likely to have the best experience. A middle seat at the table (at home or in a restaurant), for instance, can make it easier for them to hear everyone around them and participate in the conversation. If possible, seat them with their back to a wall to minimize ambient noise from behind them. It might take some extra forethought, but try to structure conversations so people talk one at a time so that those with hearing loss can focus on what each person is saying.
Designate a hearing helper. If the conversation at the table jumps around and gets complex, this person can help their loved one by repeating important talking points, so no one gets left behind.
Use captions. Many holiday gatherings have come to include online video calls. Such virtual get-togethers can be especially hard on those with hearing loss. Check to see if the software you use can automatically generate captions—most do, such as Zoom and Google Meets—or help your hard of hearing family member or friend set up captioning through the many live captioning smartphone apps such as InnoCaption.
Leverage Technology
If you or someone you love experiences hearing loss, be open about it during the holidays and take steps to maximize your experience. Find that perfect seat where you can best hear all your friends and family. Invite folks to join you in a quieter room to share stories and catch up. And don’t be afraid to ask people to repeat themselves if you can’t make out what they’re saying. There is no advocacy that is more effective than self-advocacy.
Most importantly, if you haven’t already, take advantage of modern hearing aid technology, which has come a long way in the past several years. Visit your audiologist to learn how hearing aids have evolved because what once was just a means of amplifying sound has evolved to include intelligent systems that can process cacophonous listening environments and optimize communication.
This is important because communicating clearly during the holidays is good for our overall well-being, and healthy hearing is a big part of that. We know that those with hearing loss tend to withdraw from social situations, which can affect cognitive health. And the last thing anyone wants around the holidays is social isolation.
In recent years, hearing aid developers have made great strides in addressing what’s called focused hearing, which is the ability to pick up and enhance the voice of a companion (in one direction) while diminishing background noise. However, holiday gatherings usually include several companions who are in multiple directions.
There are many approaches to addressing this big need. A technology called split processing enables a class of hearing aids that can divide a soundscape into two channels—a focus channel (the voice of the companion in front of you) and a background channel (ambient sound, like the sounds in a restaurant or festive holiday music). Each is handled separately by dedicated processors in the hearing aids and the wearer experiences greater speech clarity despite the surrounding noise.
Some of the newest hearing aids can also detect speech, including primary and secondary speakers, and automatically separate voices into multiple distinct channels for processing. The hearing aid then latches onto these voices and attempts to keep them in focus for the listener—whether those voices move in the space, or the user moves their head.
As you can tell, it may take a little extra care from loved ones and a few small lifestyle changes, but this year people with hearing loss can confidently enjoy the company of others while actively sharing their own best wishes for holidays to come. And as the year comes to a close, everyone can happily, heartily, and count down to midnight and sing along to “Auld Lang Syne.”
Sabrina Lee, Au.D., CCC-A, is an audiologist with the hearing clinics network HearUSA. A version of this article also appeared on Digital Health Buzz and Living Better 50.