The Smart Schedule For Hearing Checks By Age

Hearing loss rarely shows up like a light switch. It’s more like a slow fade you don’t notice until you’re asking people to repeat themselves, struggling in restaurants, or turning the TV up one notch at a time. We’re Sophia Yvette and Dr. Jill Copley from Total Hearing Care, and we break down the practical question almost everyone asks too late: how often should you get your hearing tested, and what does the data suggest across age groups?

We start with the quick but important path for kids: newborn hearing screening, what happens if a baby doesn’t pass, and why follow-up matters. Then we shift to adult hearing care and the simple milestone we want you to remember. Many ENTs and audiologists recommend a full diagnostic hearing test at age 50 as a screening and baseline, even if you feel fine. From there, we talk through a realistic retest rhythm (often every two to three years) so you can catch gradual changes before they become daily communication problems.

We also dig into the factors that should move your timeline up: noise exposure from concerts and loud work environments, plus medical issues like diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, kidney disorders, Parkinson’s, and mild cognitive impairment. Finally, we explain why treating hearing loss earlier isn’t only about hearing “louder” it’s about protecting speech understanding and supporting cognitive processing by keeping the auditory system and brain stimulated with prescriptive hearing devices.

If you’re in the DFW Metroplex, we’d love to help you take the next step. Subscribe, share this with someone who keeps saying “what?”, and leave a review so more people can find better hearing sooner.

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Total Hearing Care
Multiple Locations Across the DFW Metroplex
(469) 809-4487

Transcript

Welcome And What We Cover

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Total Hearing Care Difference, where we help you experience life through better hearing. Hosted by the experts of Total Hearing Care, a leading private audiology practice serving the DFW Metroplex, we are here to provide guidance on hearing loss, tinnitus, and the latest advancements in audiology. Transform your life through better hearing. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Hearing changes happen gradually, often so slowly that people don't even notice until communication becomes difficult. Today we're talking about how often you should be getting your hearing checked and what the numbers really show across different age groups. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Sophia Yvette, co-host and producer, back in the studio with Dr. Joe Copley. Dr. Copley, how is it going today? Going very well. Thank you. Great. Well, I am back happy to be back with you on this one. So, how often should I have my hearing tested? And what are the statistics at different age groups?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Very good question.

How Hearing Is Screened In Kids

SPEAKER_02 1:16

So I'm going, I know most of what we're going to talk about today is for adults, but I want to mention children just real quickly. So children will typically um be have their hearing screened after they're born in hospitals. Okay, so that is their first screening for hearing. And if they fail that screening, then it's going to be recommended that they see an audiologist or their physician for further screening to double check that. And if they fail that, then of course they're going to have full hearing testing. And we may talk another time about how babies are tested to check for hearing loss. And then after that, if that's okay, usually you go into grade school. And in grade school or elementary school, there will be periodic train uh screenings for children for their hearing. So that's that's that for children, um, real briefly.

Why Age 50 Is The Baseline

SPEAKER_02 2:16

For adults, what we are now recommending, um, and what ENTs are now recommending is that you have your hearing tested uh when you're 50 as a screening. And I think that's easy to remember because there's so many things you get done when you're 50, um, such as your shingles vaccines, your uh uh colonoscopy. We start looking to see if you need um an pneumonia vaccine, things like that. So I say uh when you're 50, you should have your first hearing test if you haven't noticed things prior to that.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Now, what does the research show about how hearing typically changes across different age groups, just as kind of an overview over these periods of time from being a baby all the way up until you're 50, for example.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Sure. So what happens with our hearing is um the single uh most common risk factor for hearing loss is aging. So there are going to be changes as you age. It doesn't mean those changes are normal. Um, if you have hearing loss, then you have hearing loss and it should be treated, but you will have changes. So one of the things um I remember, uh, especially in college when I was learning this, is you have very good high frequency, like ultra high frequency hearing when you're young. And they would have these little things online that you could play a sound. I don't know if you remember that or have ever heard of that, and you could hear it. And as you age, when you play those sounds, you can't hear them anymore. And so that was indicating that you're gonna have damage in those ultra high frequencies. Now, those ultra high frequencies aren't really used for speech, and so that's just kind of a fun thing to see how your hearing changed. But as you age and you start to get into middle age, which is typically 50s to 60s, you start to actually notice the communication problems. So that means the hearing loss has affected the frequencies that belong to speech. Um, and so that's what we're looking at when we're testing. Um, we're going to be looking for do you have uh issues hearing and the speech frequencies, which could affect communication in different ways? And as you age, um, different studies look at different kinds of age groups. But as you as you get older, certainly the percentages higher for how many people in that age group are going to have hearing loss. So if you look at people over like 80, 85, then it looks at like 85% of those over that age group are going to have hearing loss. Um, so it may be pretty low when you're under 50. Um and it may be, you know, kind of just 20 or 30 percent maybe have hearing loss between 50 and 60. But um that's where we like to start because that's where we start seeing that higher percentage of people have more hearing loss.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

So, Dr. Copley, at what age do you recommend people begin having those routine hearing screenings? Do you recommend it starting at 50?

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Yes, so we we recommend your um if you haven't been tested before, and certain certainly um adults younger than 50 can have hearing loss. Um, and we can find that. So if you notice something, if you notice you're not hearing family well, you're not not you're noticing that you're not hearing the TV well, or you're not hearing on the phone, or you're having trouble hearing in background noise, those are signs to get tested. However, if you haven't had that done, um, then it's recommended you have that full hearing test, the full diagnostic test, not just a screening, but a full test at the age of 50. Um, and then we have that baseline. We might find hearing loss, but at least we have a baseline. So then we can start testing beyond that. When I always recommended every two or three years for an adult where there's not a disease process happening, your hearing will tend to very gradually get worse. And so we may not notice something year to year, but we may notice something every two or three years and can start addressing it then.

Noise And Health Risks That Change Timing

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Now, what specific lifestyle factors influence how often someone should be tested, besides the obvious like going to concerts frequently and things like that?

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Well, that's a big one. Noise exposure is um one of the most common uh problems we have as far as causing hearing loss that is preventable. So you hit the the nail on the head there that if you are exposed to a loud noise, whether it's loud concerts, um, music entertainment kinds of loud noise, or whether it's like industrial noise. You work at um with airplanes, you work in a factory, those kinds of um noise, you do want to get your hearing tested sooner. And when you are in those noisy work environments, OSHA does require a certain level of a screening process. Um, I admit I'm not in industrial testing, so I don't know exactly when they do those screenings, but you do have to be screened so they can um find out if your um hearing is changing uh by working there. So so that's the big one is noise exposure. The others can be if you have certain diseases. So um your hearing risk goes up when you have things like diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, kidney disorders, um Parkinson's, if you have mild cognitive impairment. So if you have any of those diagnoses, it's important to get your hearing tested then.

Protecting Understanding And Brain Function

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Now, what are the most common age-related hearing trends you tend to see in practice?

SPEAKER_02 8:52

So this is kind of a summary to what we've been talking about. Um, certainly as you age, people's hearing will get worse. One of the things we notice, though, is that we really want to protect the person's ability to understand and communicate. So even if it gets worse, we want to make sure that just the hearing is getting worse, but not the understanding. So certainly treating the hearing loss sooner. Um when we find out that you have the hearing loss, if we can treat that sooner, then hopefully we can protect your ability to understand, even if your hearing gets worse. And I'm not sure I answered that whole question, but that's that's one of the major things I look at is I want to preserve your cognitive ability, your processing ability, um, even as you age, even if the hearing's getting worse.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

How do you preserve those things with decreased hearing ability?

SPEAKER_02 9:54

So what we're doing is we're stimulating the nerve. Hearing is a neurological disorder. Um, it it um affects nerve cells in the ear as well as information from those nerves to the brain. And we want to give stimulation to those nerve cells and to the nerves that send information to the brain to keep the brain working well through their hearing. We can't always prevent other things from happening, but we can hopefully give stimulation to the brain in that way by treating with um prescriptive hearing devices.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Well, Dr. Copley, thanking thank you for breaking that down for us all so clearly today. We'll see everyone next time.

Local Booking Details And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Thank you for listening to the Total Hearing Care Difference. If you're in the DFW Metroplex and ready to take the next step toward better hearing, call 469 809 4487 to book an appointment or visit totalhearingcare dot com because when you hear better, you live better. See you next time.