Well, every sixth person in Germany is more or less hard-of-hearing, and it is currently in the professional life particularly difficult. You hear almost every day complain of hearing problems, says Antje Aschendorff, Deputy Head of the ear, nose and throat clinic of the University of Freiburg. Often, the patients with moderate hearing loss, which had for many years to come still well clear because you can see the Opposite of the lips.
“Now with the masks can’t take any more, of course. Corona brings hearing problems to light, which could conceal the Affected for a long time.“ Now your patients reported again and again, you’d be afraid to have orders from the boss because of his mask misunderstood. Even in video conferences, it is not easy to read lips. The faces of the conversation partners are too small, you talk at once, or the technical equipment is of poor quality, and speakers or Headset no clear words.
people with hearing impairment experience social Isolation and stigma, they are more likely to become depressed, and often making a career out of as other people. If you make a career, you will experience more Stress in the profession. Apart from hearing problems cause enormous costs In the United States, for example, due to unemployment and early Retirement at least 105 billion dollars per year. The causes are many and varied. A graft of ear wax, fluid or inflammation in the middle ear, congenital diseases, chronic noise, age-related hearing loss, damage to the ossicles or the eardrum, benign tumors, or side effects of medications are just some of them.
“Digital Meetings only with sound for the hearing impaired, the Horror”
masks muffle the sound in an average of five to ten decibels. A reduction in the volume of ten decibels to feel often as if it were only half as loud. “We listen to anyway just a little, the damping added by the mask,” says Ulrike Berger from the cochlear implant Association in Baden-Württemberg, the main care professional training, personnel, and communication in an electric wholesale.
Berger is on both sides deaf, but with the implants, you can almost hear the normal – if you can also read lips. They preferred, however, for lip reading, the concept of “from the mouth reticle”. Because it won’t go about reading – can read only the letters, and the lips were also only in part is crucial: in addition to the position of the tongue and the question of whether the teeth are of a person visible.
Currently, the Corona-crisis, the at least that much harder, says Berger. “I feel, as I completed a Marathon every day. In the evening I’m exhausted.“ There are many solutions to help people Hear in their everyday work. Delimitation inserts disks, instead of mask, for example, or masks with see-through Plastic, or another job with less customer contact.
