"She only hears what she wants to hear!" "The phone rings and he doesn't hear it". "When my grand-daugther speaks to me with her little voice, I can't understand her. " You have probably said, or heard, any of these type of complaints before! Or you might have a parent, or a grandparent, who gives unexpected answers to your questions; or who accuses you of mumbling instead of talking properly.

This person is probably suffering from a hearing loss associated with aging (presbycusis). Auditory acuity, which means the hability to hear the sounds at a normal volume level, decrease with time and age. The rate and intensity of this type of hearing loss varies from one individual to the next. This decrease in auditory acuity happens as a result of the degeneration of auditory cells within the inner ear (cochlea) cells, which are responsible for the sound the detection of low and high pitel selection of sounds.

As a consequence, the speech of others ceases to be understood as clearly and intelligibly as before. An older person often demonstrates difficulty identifying words, so that, instead of hearing "son" they hear "ton", or "six" instead of "fix", etc. The sound of a bird singing, the ticking of a clock, the soconsonats like f-s-sh and are outside of their hearing range. Distinguishing words becomes more challenging in the noisy environments of when people are not facing them, or when they are talking from another room. Communication becomes difficult both for the person who does not hear well, and for the persons who is trying to communicate with him/her. Sometimes the person hears, sometimes she does not. As a result, conversation becomes increasingly difficult: there are more and more misunderstandings; family gatherings are no longer pleasant.

An older person suffering from presbycusis starts to quickly withdraw from family and friends, as well as from social activities (bingo, golden-age social clubs, circle of friends, etc.). She becomes withdrawn and isolated.

No there is unfortunately no medical treatment to cure this problem, but yes the solutions do exist that can help an older indvidual, who becomes hard of hearing, to stay in touch with their people around them. Hearing aids, telephone amplification devises, learing new communicative on tricks, are some of the numerous ways that can help these individuals to keep in touch with the world around them. Talk to the audiologist, the professional who deals with hearing disorders.