We all know someone who has problems hearing. They're constantly asking people not to mumble or to speak up.
For me, that person is my dad. He's 65 years old and seems to struggle a bit with hearing -- often asking people to repeat themselves during conversations. But he hasn't done anything about the problem.
That's makes him similar to many other Americans. About one in five adults report some sort of hearing loss. But what's more alarming is there are even more people out there who aren't aware they have a hearing problem.
The National Hearing Test aims to change that. It's the first over-the-phone screening in the U.S. that's been scientifically verified.
Hearing Loss Often Goes Unnoticed For Years
My parents' living room is constantly filled with the sounds of rock ‘n roll. It's a gloomy Sunday afternoon and Warren Zevon serenades us as my dad sits in his big, red arm chair and reads through the latest edition of a home brewing magazine.
He's always had a passion for music – and in his opinion, the louder the better.
"I can remember in college laying on my bed and putting a speaker next to each ear and blasting the stereo in my ears and just laying there and listening to it like that," he says.
He's also been to a lot of concerts during his lifetime. There's a picture of him hanging in the hallway of my parent's with his wind blowing in the air and mobs of people dancing behind him.
"This picture was taken in Missouri," he says. "It was at a rock festival I went to when I was much younger and had a lot more hair."
We figured all that loud music, combined with him getting older, would eventually affect his hearing.
"I cannot hear as well as I used to," he says. "I have to kind of make more of an effort to listen carefully."
We decided to put that theory to the test with the National Hearing Test.
How The National Hearing Test Works
The National Hearing Test is a five-dollar screening people can take over the phone.
And it's a test many of the scientists working there thought they'd never see in their lifetimes.
"We were all brought up in hearing science to believe you absolutely could not give a hearing test over the telephone for the simple reasons that the bandwidth, the frequencies that it delivers are not wide enough to cover the usual bandwidth of the pure tones, the little beeps that are usually used in hearing tests," says President Charles Watson.
What makes the test work is that instead of pure tones, it uses speech to test hearing capacity. A voice dictates numbers over a noisy background which the caller is then instructed to enter using their phone's keypad. If the caller gets the numbers right, the next set gets harder to hear. If they get them wrong, the test gets easier.
Some question the validity of an over-the-phone screening.
The National Hearing Test isn't meant to replace an in-person visit to an audiologist, but it can help people determine whether or not they need to make an appointment.
And the test has been scientifically verified.
You know when you start saying, 'My wife mumbles,' maybe it's not your wife it's you. And you can take the National Hearing Test and find out it's you.
"There were two validation studies done, one with Indiana University," says Project Manager Alex Crowley. "And so for those people who don't understand validation, a number of people took the National Hearing Test and then followed that with a full exam in a clinic. And the two results were compared with each other."
Based on the results, the test tells you whether you need to make an appointment for a full hearing evaluation.
So far about 80 percent of the people who've taken the test have had some sort of hearing problem.
And Crowley says there are a lot more with hearing loss who haven't been tested.
"When you read and you start to lose your eyesight, you can tell right away because things get blurry on the page and you know that there's only one reason that's happening – because your eyes are starting to go," Crowley says. "With hearing it's a little bit more complicated because you don't really have that point of reference in the same way. And so people start to lose their hearing and unless something significant happens it's a very slow progression."
Scientists say on average there's about a 10-year lapse between the time a person starts to notice hearing loss and when they seek help for the problem.
They hope National Hearing Test could help close that gap.
"The whole idea of this is to avoid that ten-year delay," Watson says. "You know when you start saying, 'My wife mumbles,' maybe it's not your wife it's you. And you can take the National Hearing Test and find out it's you."
Their biggest barrier is getting people to take the test. While it only costs five dollars, they're finding the target audience is hesitant to enter credit card information online.
Making the test available for free would remove that barrier. It's unclear how the effort would be funded but they're exploring several options.
"It could be a part of something like Medicare or Medicaid," says Vice President of Finance Daniel Maki. "It's such a tiny amount I computed that if every Medicaid customer or Medicare was charged one penny we could fund the whole country."
In the meantime, people like my dad will have to pay in order to find out whether their hearing is adequate.
And he was pleasantly surprised by his results -- in the normal range for both ears.
Sounds like he won't be turning down his music anytime soon.
