Coronavirus Calls Attention to Surgical Masks
Coronavirus has put the focus on a lot of things related to health, and recently that attention is directed to masks that doctors, dentists, and surgeons wear. For many people that are hearing impaired or wear hearing aids, they rely on reading lips. Before coronavirus, you could easily visit your doctor or dentist and speak and be able to read their lips to help you follow the conversation. Still, now that medical professionals are wearing masks any time they meet with patients, this presents a new challenge for the hearing impaired.
Issues with Wearing Masks
For someone that is hearing impaired, it is beneficial to be able to read someone’s lips during a conversation, especially if the person talking is soft-spoken or speaks at a rapid pace. If the person you are talking to is wearing a face mask, not only can you not read their lips, but the mask hinders speech, and it can also muffle a person’s voice. People in the medical field need to be aware of this issue and be conscientious of patients that have a hearing impairment and if they rely on lipreading. What can people in the medical field do to solve this issue?
The Solution for Surgical Masks
The good news is that someone has already come up with a solution to help people with lipreading when someone else is wearing a face mask. Dr. Anne McIntosh invented the Safe’N’Clear Communicator™ Clear Window Surgical Mask, which enables lipreading while still protecting a physician’s or surgeon’s patient. With the shortage of masks in general, more manufacturers are producing masks that have a clear window for lipreading. The demand for these masks has significantly increased, and suppliers are scrambling to meet these demands.
How You Can Help Advocate for Yourself
If you feel that a clear window mask would be beneficial when you are speaking with someone in the medical field, you can advocate for yourself by asking if they have one that they can use when you are talking to them. Since hearing loss is an invisible disease, most people won’t know that you are hearing impaired unless you tell them. They will want to provide you with the best experience possible, so they will be happy to help in any way that they can. If they don’t have a clear window mask available, help them by researching where they can get one. Many volunteers are making masks throughout the country, and people are coming up with new ideas daily.
Sound Hearing Care is available to help you during this challenging time. Call us at 864-881-1663 to schedule an appointment either in the office or curbside at any one of our four convenient locations in Simpsonville, Greer, Travelers Rest, and Greenville.
Before your next doctor visit, find out if they have clear-window masks available for the doctor to use during your appointment.
Interested in more articles about hearing loss?
