Aging and Hearing Loss :: Cognitive Geriatrics Essays

Aging and Hearing Loss Hearing loss is often all overlooked beca make use of our sense of perceive is an invisible sense that is incessantly expected to be in action. Yet, there are people everywhere that suffer from the effects of earshot loss. It is important to study and understand all aspects of the many different types and reasons for sense of hearing loss. The loss of this particular sense privy be socially debilitating. It can affect the communication skills of the person, not only in receiving information, but in any case in giving the correct response. This paper focuses primarily on hearing loss in the elderly. One thing that affects older individuals communication is the fuss they often experience when recognizing succession compressed vernacular. Time compressed nomenclature involves fast and unclear conversational speech. Many older listeners can fall upon the sound of the speech being spoken, but it is still unclear (Pichora-Fuller, 2000). In order to help wi th diagnosis and rehabilitation, we need to understand why speech is unclear even when it is audible. The answer to that question would also help in the development of hearing aids and other communication devices. Also, as we espouse to understand the reasoning behind this question and as we become to a greater extent knowledgeable about what older adults can and cannot hear, we can better declare them in our day to day interactions.There are many approaches to the interpretation of the elderlys difficulty with rapid speech. Researchers point to a nightfall in process speed, a decline in processing brief acoustic cues (Gordon-Salant & Fitzgibbons, 2001), an age-related decline of temporal processing in general (Gordon-Salant & Fitzgibbons, 1999 Vaughan & Letowski, 1997), the fact that both optical and auditory perception change with age (Helfer, 1998), an interference of mechanical fit of the ear, possible sensorineural hearing loss due to damage to receptors over time (Scheuer le, 2000), or a decline in the processing of sounds in midbrain (Ochert, 2000). Each one of these could be a possible history however it is often a combination of several of these causing a perceptual difficulty in the individual.Helfer (1998) recognized the slowing of our temporal perceptual processes with increasing age. He suggested that this leads to auditory deformity, especially in the instance of time compressed speech. Speech comprehension requires rapid processing of stimuli that is not always completed in time-compressed speech because of the shortening of phonemes and a decrease in pauses. Helfer went a step further by taking into account that hearing is not just auditory but it is also visual, in that we use cues like looking at the persons mouth or facial flavour while having a conversation.