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by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
This report from CNN discusses a novel strategy to help people with hearing loss understand speech: a game to train the brain to process speech better.
This is a widely known but poorly understood problem–sometimes called the “Speech in Noise problem”–with people with hearing loss, but it can also affect people with normal or adequate hearing as tested by standard hearing tests (“pure tone audiometry”) who nonetheless can have problems understanding speech.
The problem is worse for those with hearing aids, which is probably why up to 40% of people with hearing aids don’t use them–they just don’t help understand speech in everyday situations. As hearing loss blogger Shari Eberts has written, hearing aids just are not like eyeglasses.
Some research supports a central cause for this, i.e., deficiencies in brain processing of auditory signals as people age. Other research puts the problem in the periphery, i.e., the ear. And the research on hidden hearing loss puts the problem in between, in the nerves connecting the ear to the brain. Most likely the explanation involves all three.
Even though the computer game reported in this story may eventually help people who struggle to understand speech, dealing with hearing loss and noisy restaurants isn’t a game.
The real answer isn’t brain training. It’s quieter restaurants, stores, and other public places.
Quieter indoor places will not only help those who already have hearing loss understand speech, they will prevent hearing loss in those still with good hearing.
