Imagine you’re out and about shopping and running errands for the week. As you walk through the parking lot, you see something that doesn’t belong on the ground. After a few seconds, you realize that it’s a hearing aid. You look around. You don’t see anyone else to whom the aid could belong. What do you do? What’s your next step? How do you help the person who lost the aid?
Hearing aids are the most common treatment for hearing loss. Hearing aids are used by people of all ages – infants through senior adults. Anyone who has worn hearing aids or knows someone who wears aids, also knows that hearing aids are quite expensive yet incredibly important for functioning in everyday life. Research has even shown them to help stave off dementia! But, they also rest on the ears and can get snagged by glasses or masks. Because of this, some people who wear hearing aids also end up losing them in some of the worst possible places. When this happens, a significant investment in their quality of life has disappeared and the anxiety around this loss can be great – especially if the person is financially strained already. But, the good news is that you can help!
Some of the most common places people lose their hearing aids are at the store, in a parking lot, or while going out for a walk. We’ve even heard of them being left on airplanes or accidentally thrown in the trash. Many people don’t even realize they have lost their hearing aid until they get home from a day of errands or a long trip, so they have no idea where their aid was lost. Most will start calling all the places they have been, but in many cases, the aids are never found. If the aid can’t be found, that person will have hundreds to thousands of dollars that will need to be paid to replace the lost aid. Those who are not able to afford such a sudden financial strain, will often forgo replacing the aids altogether (at least for a time) and have to live a life where everyone seems to mumble and it is impossible to hear speech correctly.
So, how can you help? What do you do if you find a hearing aid? The most obvious step is to turn it in to the place where you found it so they can have it available in their lost and found. However, if that isn’t an option as the aid was found outside of a store (or if it is in lost and found for more than a couple of days), the next best option is to take the aid to an audiology office. Most audiology offices have the ability to read the serial numbers of aids and can use that information to contact the manufacturer and see where the aid was purchased from. Then, the dispensing audiologist office can be contacted so that that office can inform the patient where their aid is located.
In some cases, aids are “proprietary” and will need to go to specific locations. Most audiology offices can send you to the right place if their office is unable to work with such aids. This may seem like a lot of effort, but if you knew how important hearing aids are for many people, you would understand how much someone would appreciate the effort you took to make sure they are able to hear. Without a hearing aid, many people can’t even function in everyday conversation. You could think of it like losing your only pair of glasses when you truly cannot see without them. Instead of images being blurry, however, speech is ‘blurry’ and can be nearly impossible to understand.
So, if you are ever in a situation where you have the opportunity to get a hearing aid back to its owner, please do what you can. You will return to a person a higher quality of life as well as prevent them from needing to pay thousands of dollars for new ones. And, if you ever do need aids yourself, please make your way to Oro Valley Audiology where we will take the time to listen to your needs and ensure that the aids you get are the best for your loss and your lifestyle.
