Description
One of the earliest signs of hearing loss is surprisingly common: feeling like everyone around you is mumbling or not speaking clearly.
In this video, Dr. Erica Moore, Director of Audiology at UAMS Health, explains how subtle changes in hearing often develop over time and why they should not be ignored. She also discusses age related hearing loss (presbycusis), how it progresses gradually, and why regular hearing evaluations are important for early detection and monitoring.
Untreated hearing loss can impact much more than communication. It has been linked to social isolation and may affect cognitive health, making it harder to stay engaged in conversations and everyday activities.
At UAMS Health, hearing care is highly individualized. Our audiology team evaluates each patient’s hearing, lifestyle, and communication needs to determine the most appropriate solution. This may include hearing aids, assistive listening devices such as TV streamers or remote microphones, and other advanced technologies designed to improve daily communication.
Learn how recognizing the early signs of hearing loss and seeking care early can help protect both your hearing and your quality of life.
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Transcript
One of the earliest signs of hearing loss is something I hear from patients all the time: everyone around them seems to be mumbling. They’ll say their grandson has suddenly been mumbling constantly, or that they think their hearing is fine, but family members keep telling them otherwise. Usually, if everyone seems to be mumbling, it’s time to get your hearing tested.
A lot of people don’t realize that hearing loss affects much more than communication. Untreated hearing loss has also been linked to early onset dementia, and it causes social isolation. Many of my patients tell me, “I haven’t been hearing well, so I’ve just stopped doing my normal social activities.” They stop going to dinner with family, or stop attending their small group, because they can’t understand their friends. One of my biggest goals for my patients is getting them back into the activities they really enjoy.
One of the most common types of hearing loss we see is presbycusis, age related hearing loss. We know that hearing loss often decreases slowly over time, which is why most of my patients already have some hearing loss by the time they first come in. We recommend yearly hearing tests to monitor changes, since hearing gradually declines over time.
Determining whether a patient needs hearing aids or a different kind of hearing device requires looking at the whole patient. We don’t want to just treat the hearing loss, we want to treat the patient and their lifestyle. We do a thorough evaluation of their day to day activities: what that looks like, and which areas they’re struggling in specifically. One hearing aid that works for a patient might not be appropriate for another patient with the same hearing loss; they may need a completely different device.
It’s exciting to see how many accessories and assisted listening devices are available in addition to hearing aids. For instance, TV streamers let a patient plug into the back of their TV so it streams directly to their hearing aids, which is important for many patients. Another helpful device is a remote microphone: the person someone is trying to hear, whether a spouse, a preacher, or a teacher, can wear the microphone, and their voice streams directly to the person wearing the hearing aids.
One thing patients often don’t know is that untreated hearing loss has consequences they may not expect. Our brain needs stimulation, it needs sound for neural connections to function properly. When the brain doesn’t have access to that sound, those neural connections break down and can’t be repaired. So if a patient has mild or moderate hearing loss and doesn’t get hearing aids, five years later they may still have a similar level of hearing loss, but their speech understanding, their ability to understand others, actually decreases, even though the level at which they hear stays the same.
