Hidden Hearing Kilkenny Celebrates its 10th Birthday by Giving Back to Their Local Community

Symptom of Hearing Loss

Symptoms of hearing loss can be as simple as turning up the TV too loud or asking someone to repeat themselves. Hearing loss often leads to stress, loneliness and social anxiety. The sooner you have your hearing loss treated the better but unfortunately people can leave it go for up to 10 years before they seek treatment. Hidden Hearing’s Give Back programme, which is an integral part of the ‘Campaign for Better Hearing’, sees those in local communities around Ireland, who couldn’t otherwise afford hearing devices, gifted with the chance to hear better again. The campaign this month has seen Kilkenny native Patsy Murphy receive, free top-of-the-range hearing devices from the hearing aid specialists, Hidden Hearing. This year also marks a special date for Hidden Hearing as the state-of-the-art clinic on James’ Street in Kilkenny town celebrated its 10^th Birthday.

Patsy’s Hearing Loss Story:

Patsy Murphy is a 78-year-old woman who has suffered with hearing loss for most of her adult life. She has found that, gradually, her hearing loss simply began to deteriorate. Sometimes there is no official cause of hearing loss, it can just happen upon people, and it can worsen with age. Patsy has used other hearing aids in the past but finds the new ones that she has been fitted with by Hidden Hearing are on another level. ‘These are so different, they’re so light, you barely feel them. I can hear my own voice’.

Audiologist Stephen Kelly of the Hidden Hearing Kilkenny clinic, nominated Patsy as part of the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programme the company is promoting to improve peoples’ hearing. When Patsy got the phone call to inform her she was chosen to benefit from the scheme, she was over the moon.

Patsy said “I have never won anything and getting new devices, it was just too much for me to stretch to at this point in my life. I’m so happy with them & I wish to thank both Bernie & Stephen for thinking of me and giving me something to be happy about”.

Stephen, who has been working for Hidden Hearing over 10 years, stresses the importance of getting your ears tested; “Isolation is so common amongst those who are hard of hearing. They just don’t want to go out and put themselves into situations where they know they cannot hear properly and they find it embarrassing. Bernie & I are delighted to have been given the chance to nominate someone like Patsy in our local community, to hear better again”.

SOUND ADVICE

Speaking from an audiologist’s perspective, Stephen advises on the importance of hearing health and encouraging loved ones and family to have their hearing evaluated.

He says; “I would advise anyone who is worried about their hearing health to come in to our clinic on James’ street, Kilkenny for a short screening. We will check for earwax and we can offer Ear Irrigation & Micro Suction for free for those over the age of 50 should they need it removed. If there is any sign of a loss we will offer them a free full hearing test and we also can send a complementary audiogram to their GP”.

ABOUT HIDDEN HEARING’S “CAMPAIGN FOR BETTER HEARING”

Free hearing testing is available in over 80 state-of-the-art Hidden Hearing clinics throughout Ireland, as part of the “Campaign for Better Hearing” which was launched earlier this year by Daniel and Majella O’Donnell, proud supporters of the Campaign for Better Hearing. The campaign aims to improve the hearing health of the communities around the various Hidden Hearing clinics nationwide.  Education and information in relation to prevention and treatment, as well as hearing aid technology, is also part of the year-long hearing health campaign.

Around *86% of hearing loss in Ireland is untreated, for several reasons; an element of which is the perceived stigma at wearing a hearing device.

*Hearing loss is shockingly prevalent in Ireland. In fact, 1 in 5 adults suffer from at least a mild hearing loss. Even among younger adults ages 18- 24, they are showing early signs of noise induced hearing loss. By the age of 55, a quarter of the population report a significant deterioration in hearing and by 65 this rises to one third.

In the region of 100,000 people may be risking the knock-on physical and psychological impacts of untreated hearing loss, which recent research has shown to include social isolation, depression, dementia, diminished heart health and stroke.

According to Hidden Hearing, Marketing Director, Dolores Madden, over half the population between the ages of 60 and 80 are likely to have measurable hearing loss.

The ‘Give Back’ Programme, which is an integral part of the ‘Campaign for Better Hearing’ sees all clinics of Hidden Hearing nominate a member of the community to get a free hearing device fitted. Hidden Hearing want to drive home the message of the importance of good hearing and improve hearing health in those who they feel need it, because life is worth hearing.

More information is available on www.hiddenhearing.ie or www.campaignforbetterhearing.ie.

You can also call 1890 80 40 50 to learn more about the Campaign for Better Hearing.