Mark Ross on Veterans and Aural Rehabilitation

\By Mark Ross

November 2009

Editor: I can't imagine a better person to write on this topic. Mark is an audiologist with a long-term hearing loss, so he knows the topic from both perspectives. Furthermore, was both a VA client and a VA audiologist a few moons ago! This article originally appeared in the "Hearing Loss" magazine, and is reprinted with the author's kind permission.

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It is generally agreed that the profession of Audiology had its genesis during WW II. It arose from the efforts of the U.S. Military to provide Aural Rehabilitation programs for the servicemen who suffered a hearing loss. The programs developed were "state of the art," for the time, with the government providing all it could and all it knew to the people who returned with a service related hearing loss. Clearly, the potential impact of a hearing loss was recognized and the government accepted its obligation to try and ameliorate the resulting handicap. Nothing was "too good for the boys," and cost seemed an irrelevant consideration. Later, upon their discharge, the VA picked up the responsibility for taking care of these men.

The programs that the VA developed were also pretty much "State of the Art." I trained and worked for the VA myself at the end of the 50's and the early 60's and I know that we provided our patients with whatever was felt they needed. The VA also served as the primary incubator in which many future Audiologists received their first clinical experiences. The testing and HA selection procedures initially developed during WW II were adopted and extended by the VA. During this period, in my experiences with the VA as a patient and as an Audiologist, the profession expanded and matured while still providing an example of excellent clinical services that should be emulated. While there was not as much available then to ameliorate the potential impact of a hearing loss as there is now - either with prosthetic devices or rehabilitation procedures - the VA did what it could with the resources it had available.

It is because of this background and history that I was so interested in to listening to Captain Mark Brogan at the HLAA convention. Out of all the injuries that he sustained, he considered his hearing loss as "definitely one of the most troublesome." We all know how often the effects of a hearing loss - this "invisible handicap" in the words of Rocky Stone - is underestimated. For somebody like Mark Brogan, its impact is compounded by the traumatic brain injury he also suffered. While he received many months of therapy for his physical and brain injuries, there was evidently nothing comparable provided to him for his hearing impairment. For this he was given hearing aids, which fortunately have proved to be very helpful, but more can and should be done. Being the person he is, he has taken the initiative in seeking other sources of help and support, such as his local HLAA chapter. But the provision of other necessary technical and support services and should not be left to happenstance, but should be built into the system, much the same these services are provided for someone with a physical impairment.