Hearing Loss: From Stigma to Strategy

Literally millions of people in Britain are affected by hearing loss, and the number is growing steadily. For many, it is a desperate situation, for others, an unwished-for challenge: to enter the world of hearing aids and gadgets, and to somehow come to terms with other people’s jokes—blindness is never laughed at—and the need to adjust a muffled, or even silent, environment. Michael Simmons, a distinguished international journalist until his retirement in 1997, has age-related hearing loss. Researching for this book, he soon realized it was a very poor relation in the deafness field. Deafness itself has been the subject of many, many books for many generations. Hearing loss, on the other hand, is swept under the carpet, under-researched, under-funded while also being routinely exploited by unscrupulous hearing appliance manufacturers. Simmons examines the stigma and the suffering of hearing loss, traces the history of fellow sufferers and the remedies they—and their partners—have tried, and goes on to look at the viable resources and remedies that are available. He finds there is light at the end of the tunnel.