August 2023 Speaker
Our August meeting was attended by 52 members, and was relayed via Zoom to another eight.
We were pleased to welcome Sophie as CEO of her organisation 'Hearing Help Essex'. She started by sharing her own hearing health journey; hearing problems developed in her late teens meant she failed to hear a fire alarm until she was woken by firefighters in her bedroom! On getting a new office job she discovered she wasn’t able to use the phone. She shared several amusing stories including how her husband had to turn lights on and off to get her attention if he wanted to speak to her, and how once she had her hearing aid, the sound of emptying the dishwasher was unbearably loud. Several anecdotes were shared about husbands not 'hearing' their wives, but she explained that high frequency sounds are typically the first to go in hearing loss, which of course, includes women’s voices. Later she set up Hearing Health Essex to help others with hearing loss and now gives advice to over 3000 people a year, including their partners and family, offering home visits where necessary.
We learned that age-related hearing loss is most common and many don’t realise there’s a problem until someone tells them, or ignore the advice if they do! There are many reasons for different types of hearing loss, and it’s important to get tested after the age of 55. Wearing a hearing aid is not always the full solution, and body language cues, facial expressions can also be helpful. Modern hearing aids can now work with Bluetooth and can be programmed and adjusted to suit individual needs, and different loss of frequencies. They can work more easily with mobile phones and various 'apps' for live-captioning during calls. Hearing Help Essex get donated a multitude of aids which people have bought but often don’t use or need for one reason or another. These can be loaned from their Resource Centre in Moulsham St. She also outlined the importance of getting hearing aids serviced, another service her organisation offers.
She reminded us that we don’t hesitate to put on our glasses if we can’t see something, so why not put on a hearing aid to hear?
She was introduced and thanked by u3a member Mike, himself a much-valued volunteer with Hearing Help Essex, who also shared an amusing story with us. After her talk, Sophie answered some questions from the floor and also gave an opportunity for private queries, which seemed very popular judging by the queue…..
For the full list of services and contact numbers, please see the accompanying photographs.