Last week I wrote about vision issues. It seems fair to give hearing issues their fair share of time. The statistics for hearing issues are interesting. About 17 percent of the adult population (36 million people) have some hearing loss. For the age group 65 - 74 years, about 1/3 have hearing loss. After age of 75, the number increases to 1/2 the population. That makes it one of the most prevalent chronic health conditions in older adults. Of the group who would benefit from hearing treatment only 20 percent bother doing so. It takes about 10 years for most individuals diagnosed with chronic hearing loss to actually get a set of hearing aids. As the baby boomers continue to age hearing problems will affect more and more individuals. One of the main issues with hearing loss is that it occurs gradually, you don’t wake up one morning and suddenly are not able to hear any longer. That allows denial to play a large role in the delay of treatment. The first sign is often subtle. Individuals find that it is harder to hear things when there is background noise present. Usually the first person to diagnose hearing [...]