Aural rehabilitation officer Edwina Condon works with the Cork Deaf Association, providing support to people with acquired hearing loss
Acquired hearing loss is quite different, in many respects, from a hearing disability from birth, as people have to go through a period of adjustment to adapt to their loss of hearing.
There are varying degrees of, and reasons for, hearing loss, although in many cases it is age-related.
Younger people can also experience early onset of age-related hearing loss or may have hearing problems due to noise damage.
Because human beings hear across a range of frequencies, people can experience different types of hearing loss, such as high frequency or low frequency loss.
Aural rehabilitation encompasses a wide range of services, although the ultimate aim is to provide support and advice to people who have acquired a hearing problem in the course of their lives.
Based at the Cork Deaf Association's centre in McCurtain Street, Cork, I usually start my day by responding to the large number of e-mails, faxes and phone messages that I receive every week from clients.
A large part of my work involves helping people adjust to using assistive equipment, in particular hearing aids. Hearing aid technology is a lot more sophisticated today. However, people still find it difficult to start using a hearing aid and, in a sense, there can be a certain stigma associated with having one. So I run adjustment programmes once a week for four to six weeks for each client to help them get the most out of and maintain their hearing aids. I also give demonstrations and information about other assistive equipment developed for people with hearing loss, such as phones, doorbells and fire alarms.
Although we operate a drop-in centre, I run weekly home visits for older people who may not be able to travel into the city to receive advice and support.
Another important part of my job is to run group lip-reading classes once a week. These classes help people develop analytical lip-reading skills, as well as become more observant of other non-verbal cues, such as body language and gestures.
It's also important to help people become more assertive and to re-develop the confidence they may have lost due to their condition. When people develop long-term hearing loss, they often start to withdraw from social situations and, as a result, can begin to feel more isolated and even depressed.
As well as helping people restore their confidence, I also run activities and outings for members to get them back into social situations.
Although hearing loss is as prevalent as arthritis and heart disease, it often doesn't receive the recognition it deserves as a very real and sometimes debilitating condition. An important aspect of my work, therefore, is to give talks within the community to groups such as public health nurses, occupational therapists and audiologists, to raise awareness about the condition and about the work I do.
Although there are only a small number of aural rehabilitation officers in Ireland, hopefully there will be a lot more in the years to come, particularly since the introduction of the diploma in aural rehabilitation at UCD, which is run in association with the National Association for Deaf People.
(In an interview with Susan Calnan)