By Charlotte Webster-
A Scrivens Opticians and Hearing Care study to mark November’s Hearing Awareness Month has found that two thirds of people said wearing face coverings had affected their ability to hear clearly or make themselves heard. Those who already suffer from hearing loss claimed to be most affected, and many of those whose hearing was normal before its deterioration, generally had other issues wrong with them.
Masks were also said to have created enormous challenges for members of the Deaf community who use sign language, clinicians with hearing loss, and other populations. The British and U.S government have made it legally mandatory for members of the public to wear masks in shops, shopping centres, restaurants, and public transport, in a bid to combat the coronavirus. Masks are generally required where people are congregated in any enclosed spaces, and are to be worn fully to cover the nose, because of the medical position that the transmission of the virus can also be airborne.
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Now residents in Horsforth- a city in Leeds, Northern England, are being invited to take an online hearing check if they find themselves regularly mishearing words or being too embarrassed to ask people to repeat themselves.
Challenge
Communication has always been challenging in emergency departments and hospital wards due to high levels of noise and poor environmental engineering. The complications are made more severe due to the new mandatory requirements for masks.
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Masks bring additional barriers to those in hospital settings. In addition to blocking lip movements and facial expressions (which are so important when hearing is marginal), masks muffle the high frequency portions of sound that are essential to speech.
Advocates for progressive changes have said that because facial expressions and lip movements are basic components of sign language in healthcare settings, remote (video) sign language interpretation services must be provided to address some of the challenges posed by masks in those settings.
One potential solution for some patients is to use virtual mechanisms to address the challenges Many people with hearing loss, especially those with more severe loss, need captioning to understand speech delivered through online platforms. High quality real time speech-to-text captioning is offered for free on some platforms (such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams), but other platforms (such as Zoom and FaceTime) lag behind.
Low Tech Aids
Low tech aids like white boards or yellow pads are now being explored to overcome the set backs for those with pre-exisiting disabilities. Some solutions have been found in smartphones and tablets which offer real time speech-to-text transcription. Many apps also now run with enormous speed and accuracy, attracting a number of tech savvy patients to using them. Healthcare facilities might be required under law to provide speech-to-text transcription for patients needing it.
Town Street branch manager Katie Fox said: “Our reearch shows mishearing or not hearing something can make us feel uncomfortable. As we don’t like to cause offence or make others feel uneasy we’ll frequently resort to going along with it in order to save face or put that person at ease.
“It’s not surprising masks, face coverings and screens to help guard against the spread of coronavirus have made it more difficult to follow what is being said. But if you find yourself having to ask people to repeat themselves a lot, you shouldn’t ignore it as it may indicate hearing loss.”
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