Early intervention for adult and geriatric deafness is also needed

  In the daily outpatient clinics, a problem was noticed in the previous years. Some foreign patients, whether from Europe, America, Asia, Africa or Latin America, had mostly good results with their first hearing aids. Rarely did they experience discomfort such as being noisier or unbearable, and they were usually able to use their hearing aids for a long time with one or two adjustments. The hearing aids are usually adjusted once or twice for long-term use, and the follow-up visits show that the hearing aids help them more in their life and work. At first, I had the idea that most of the research and development of hearing aids was concentrated in developed countries in Europe and the United States. Maybe the speech coding strategy of hearing aids is more suitable for English-speaking patients.  However, with the increase of foreign patients, I found the following characteristics: 1. Most of them are senior managers in China, and most of them are less than 60 years old; 2. They have high knowledge structure and easily accept the suggestion of physicians to match hearing aids; 3. The nature of their work is important and poor hearing has a great impact on them; 4. As long as physicians inform them of the incurability of hearing loss, they usually no longer seek treatment options; 5. Even short-term arrivals are already informed about hearing loss and treatment options.  As a result, we propose a program of early intervention for geriatric deafness and hearing loss in middle-aged and young adults as well. That is, your hearing loss, as long as it cannot be cured by medication and surgery, should be matched with hearing aids as soon as possible if using them helps. Otherwise, over time, the hearing function will deteriorate and the hearing aid may not work as well as it should. And the later the fitting is made, the longer the adaptation period will be.  Recently, in a collaborative study with colleagues in the United States and Canada, our group found no significant differences in the Long Term Speech Spectrum (LTASS) between Mandarin and English. That is, encoding strategies do not produce significant inter-language differences in speech comprehension with hearing aids. This, of course, requires further scientific validation. Therefore, “early detection, early diagnosis, early intervention (medication/surgery/hearing aids/cochlear implants, etc.), and early rehabilitation” should be applied to all people with hearing problems, not only to children.  After Spring Festival 2009: A foreign guest recently visited a doctor, and since he was diagnosed with a surgically treatable ear disease, surgery was recommended as the first choice before considering hearing aid options. Therefore, correct diagnosis is the first priority.  Late 2009: A high-level person from a friendly country visited the doctor and asked my assistant to explain to him about the use of hearing aids and tinnitus. It seems it is still important to learn English, otherwise other patients would have to wait for me to explain to him little by little. He also heard our advice, discussed with his physician in his home country and was immediately fitted with a hearing aid.