Living Better with Restored Hearing

Katherine Bouton is a blogger for the AARP Hearing Resource Center and the author of "Living Better With Hearing Loss: A Guide to Health, Happiness, Love, Sex, Work, Friends.. .and Hearing Aids."

She is a former editor at The New York Times, and is the author of Shouting Won't Help: Why I—and 50 Million Other Americans—Can't Hear You. 

Throughout a successful career in magazine publishing, which included ten years at The New Yorker and 22 years at The New York Times, Katherine struggled with progressive hearing loss. Like many adults who lose their hearing, she kept the loss a secret. Even her family and friends had no idea of the severity of the loss, or of the emotional toil it took.

The decision to write "Shouting Won't Help" was a decision to come out about hearing loss, to tell her story so that others like her, who number in the millions, would also gain the courage to speak up about hearing loss, to ask for accommodations, to get hearing aids or a cochlear implant and wear them -- and most of all, to demolish the myth that hearing loss is a sign of aging, a stigma has done untold damage to millions. 

As a former science editor and writer, Katherine also deals with the science of hearing loss and its sister afflictions tinnitus and vertigo. She is a frequent speaker at hearing loss organizations as well as to academic and professional groups. She speaks about the subjective experience of hearing loss, the need for public policy changes like insurance coverage for hearing aids, the need for caregivers to recognize hearing loss, the consequences of untreated hearing loss (which may include depression, insomnia, isolation, a higher risk for dementia) and many other issues.