TORONTO - Think of hearing loss and it may conjure up the image of an aged grandparent leaning forward, cupping a hand behind one ear and shouting: "What did you say?"
While gradual loss of hearing is a common occurrence as we pile up the birthdays, it's no longer an affliction only of those in their senior years.
Baby boomers, that postwar demographic whose generational mantra could be summed up as "forever young," are also beginning to join the ranks of the hard of hearing -- and they don't like it one bit.
"Hearing loss, especially age-related hearing loss, is thought to be something that naturally happens as you grow older, people thinking older meaning 70-, 80-plus," says Richard Bowring, senior manager of programs for the Hearing Foundation of Canada.
"Now baby boomers who are 40 and 50 are thinking, 'Well, I don't feel old. I don't look old.
Therefore these things that happen to old people shouldn't be happening to me until I'm 80 or 90,' " says Bowring.
"So they don't want to admit that they have a hearing loss."
Signs that one's sound sense is waning include the belief that people are mumbling, needing people to repeat themselves, and having others complain that one has the TV or radio volume deafeningly high.
"It normally starts happening around 60 years of age," notes Bowring. "It's simply a matter that the hair cells in the cochlea have gone through their lifetime and they're being worn down, as it were."
Up to 40 per cent of Canadians over 65 and about half of those 75-plus have age-related hearing loss, but such statistics may need to be dialled back to a younger age as more boomers come out of the closet about hearing loss.
A recent U.S. survey suggests there is 26 per cent more hearing loss among Americans now aged 46 to 64, compared with their parents' generation.
"What has happened is that with baby boomers doing the whole rock 'n' roll generation thing and going to concerts and doing all the loud things they love to do, they have progressively damaged the hair cells in the cochlea, so that the hair cells have died earlier," Bowring says.
"So they are getting the hearing loss earlier and earlier. And in fact, it has been documented that the age shift for that has dropped around 20 years, so around the 40-year-old mark.
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Losing one's hearing acuity in what many would consider the prime of life can be a terrible blow, especially when it comes to career aspirations.
Hearing consultant Gael Hannan recalls the story of a middle-aged, high-powered banker with reduced hearing who told audiologists he wanted "the smallest hearing aids possible so that people wouldn't notice, because he did not want to lose power.
"That banker was the epitome of the baby-boomer thing.
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Hannan, an actress with long-term and progressive hearing loss who performs a one-woman show called Unheard Voices to raise awareness about the issue, concedes there has long been a stigma around hearing loss.
She says the thinking goes something like this: "I have hearing loss. I'm getting old.
I'm not as capable as I once was. I'm not as effective. People will think less of me.
I will appear foolish.
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