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“Communication is a Team Sport,” says Dr. Mel Miller of Treasure Valley Hearing in Boise, Idaho. Dr. Miller joins Mike and Joyce to talk about how to make sure that communication works. Dr. Miller holds hearing support groups and classes both for people experiencing hearing loss and for their family members.
It takes two people to have a conversation. If one of them can’t hear or can’t comprehend what the speaker is saying, then communication is not happening. Dr. Miller offers coaching for both parties to improve the odds that the intended communication is in fact getting through.
We talk about tinnitus, 8th nerve damage, hearing, audiology, blood pressure, and being ready to admit that help is needed and to accept that help. We also talk about depression among people with hearing loss.
Often people with hearing loss become isolated and depressed because they become isolated from normal conversation. They may be embarrassed to admit they can’t hear well. One of Dr. Miller’s patients said, “Relationships were becoming a little difficult for me to maintain. Sometimes you try to guess what people are saying and answer them as positively as you can. Then you find out occasionally that you did not do a very good job. So I was becoming depressed.”
Dr. Miller talks not only about hearing testing and possibly appliances that might help, he also talks about some basic hints for how you can include a person with hearing loss in normal conversation. For example:
- get their attention before you begin to speak
- speak clearly and more slowly (not necessarily louder)
- don’t cover your mouth or turn away, as visual clues help
- keep the “noise” to a minimum — turn down the TV or ask the restaurant to lower the music
We talk about ways to convince a family member to get their hearing tested.
The best present you can give your senior citizen relatives is to help them be “in the conversation.”
Dr. Miller’s website has a wealth of information about hearing protection, testing, and supplementation.
http://www.treasurevalleyhearing.com
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dr. Miller is a full-time audiologist with Treasure Valley Hearing & Balance. He accepts patients for diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss as well as in the specialties of tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and pediatric audiology. Miller has been practicing audiology for over thirty years. He obtained his bachelors and masters degrees in audiology from Brigham Young University, and his Ph.D. in audiology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He has been on the faculty of three universities and has owned private practices in Oklahoma City and Dallas. Dr. Miller currently serves on the National Audiology Advisory Council for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and is active at the local, national, and international levels in the Special Olympics Healthy Hearing Program.
