High-tech aids for hearing loss

By RON TAYLOR

When American President Ronald Reagan used to grin at questions and infuriate journalists with the retort, "I can't hear you," it was true: he could not hear because he had turned off his hearing aid to avoid having to answer.

President Bill Clinton, aged 54, is the opposite: he wears a hearing aid to catch the faintest aside and has never been known to be slow to reply.

It is estimated 14 per cent of New Zealanders of Mr Clinton's generation are among about 400,000 in this country who have hearing loss. A further 30 per cent older than 65 are affected.

While hearing loss is common among the aged, their problem often starts when they are younger.

It is induced by noise at work and exposure to loud music and life in general.

Dr Ellen McNeil, clinical director of the Audiology Centre and of Auckland Healthcare Services' audiology services, says more men (12 per cent) than women (7 per cent) report loss of hearing and this might, in part, be from noisy occupations.

There is a stigma attached to hearing loss, especially among those who are older.

"They resist a hearing device because it draws attention to a lessening of their faculties, or they say they can hear all right - it is just that other people speak too softly.

"That's a common excuse," says Catherine Camp, manager of audiology in New Zealand for the international Siemens company, one of the world's leading makers of hearing devices.

"What they don't realise is that the older they get the harder it is to fit an effective aid and for them to get used to it.

"People should consult an audiologist as soon as their hearing starts to decline."

Aids like those worn by Presidents Clinton and Reagan are mini-computers about half the size of a little finger nail.

They fit deep and snug in the ear canal and have a little clear plastic tab so they can be removed.

They weigh about a gram - that is lighter than a Monarch butterlfy - and their computer pack can handle millions of calculations per second to translate and reduce distortion in noisy environments. Their tiny battery provides power for at least a week.

Mrs Camp says such high-tech devices cost between $2000 and $3000.

Siemens' latest product, Signia, is a second generation, fully-digital computer.

It has a computer chip which houses a million transistors to differentiate between speech and background sound.