How One Man’s Life Changed When He Could Hear Again

Treating hearing loss with cochlear implants can make all the difference

Bobbi Dempsey,

AARP

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Published August 28, 2024

eight drawings of ears on a red-orange background, with some of the ear drawings getting crumbled

Meiko Arquillos

Like many people who experience hearing loss, Herbert “Butch” O. Crosby, Jr., had noticed clues that his hearing was gradually worsening over the years.

Looking back now, Crosby, 78, of St. Matthews, South Carolina, says he would notice people talking about sounds that he couldn’t hear. An avid deer hunter, he remembers being in a tree stand with his youngest grandson. “My grandson said, ‘Papa, did you hear that?’ And I said no. He kept asking, and I kept saying, ‘No, I can’t hear that.’”

Crosby says hearing loss affected his morale and his ability to socialize with friends and family.

“You’re watching everybody talk but you can’t get in and talk yourself. It’s embarrassing, to be honest.” He said he reached a point where the only words he seemed to use were, “What did you say?”

Free at-home hearing test

AARP members can take a telephone-based hearing test for free once a year. The National Hearing Test is an independent and scientifically validated hearing screen test developed with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Find out more.

As a veteran, Crosby was able to get hearing aids through the VA, but he says the devices only provided limited improvement. His daughter, who works at Montgomery Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic at the University of South Carolina, repeatedly urged him to look into getting cochlear implants.

When he went for his first consultation, Crosby was told he didn’t meet the criteria established by Medicare at that time. But his timing was fortunate. In September 2022, Medicare adjusted their criteria for cochlear implant coverage eligibility, allowing Crosby to receive a cochlear implant device.

Hearing loss often goes unnoticed and untreated

In a recent AARP Research poll, most adults said knowing a hearing loss could harm their brain health would motivate them to address it — yet only 4 in 10 American adults ages 50 and over have had a hearing test in the last five years.

Because hearing loss can develop gradually over time, the person experiencing the hearing loss often doesn’t realize how bad things have gotten until other people around them point it out.

“Other people around us might notice it before we do, because we’ll turn the TV a little bit louder, we can compensate, we can lean in, we can avoid noisy situations,” says Teresa “Terry” Zwolan, who serves as the director of audiology access and standards of care for Cochlear Americas and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Cochlear Implant (ACI) Alliance for her contributions in the field of cochlear implantation.

“But as hearing loss gets worse, then the ramifications of the hearing loss, the impact that it has on us really elevates as well, and then we start to withdraw even more. We see that people with hearing loss often isolate themselves, which then can lead to sadness.”

A person with hearing loss might adjust their routine and social interactions, perhaps without consciously realizing it. “They might not even recognize how they’re withdrawing. They might just feel like, ‘I just like quiet situations better,’” Zwolan says. “And they might not really connect that really, they don’t like to go out because it’s difficult to hear and difficult to communicate.”

Promoting hearing loss treatment

Zwolan was involved in coordinating a study that helped prompt Medicare to expand their coverage of cochlear implants. “It’s an area near and dear to my heart — we worked very hard on that initiative. Previously, when I worked in an implant program, I could have two patients of the same age with the same hearing loss sitting in my waiting room. And I could say to one of them, ‘You qualify for a cochlear implant, your insurance will cover it.’ But to the other person who had Medicare with the same hearing loss, I would have to say, ‘You would benefit from a cochlear implant, but your insurance won’t cover it.’”

Hearing professionals had been pushing Medicare to change the guidelines for covering cochlear implants. “Medicare really likes to have data to show the value of doing this, so they let us identify a group of patients with a little bit more hearing than they traditionally approved,” Zwolan says. The study looked at the results of patients who received cochlear implants using the adjusted criteria. “And they demonstrated great outcomes. It showed that it was safe, it was effective, it really improved speech recognition, it improved quality of life.”

Thanks in part to that convincing data, “Medicare brought their indication up and equal to that of the FDA and to that of most insurers,” Zwolan says. “So no longer do we have to separate out the patients who are elderly, or just on Medicare, because they aren’t covered as well. It was a really nice thing for patients who have Medicare to be able now to qualify for cochlear implant.”

This change in Medicare criteria is an important milestone, as a recent report by The Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH) found that issues of equity and other structural barriers — such as lack of insurance coverage and the high cost of hearing devices — were a major obstacle that prevented some people from getting treatment for hearing loss.

“I think sometimes patients don’t come in with Medicare, thinking that Medicare does not cover cochlear implants because straight Medicare doesn’t cover hearing aids currently,” says Zwolan. “Some of the Medicare Advantage plans are the Part C plans [that] will cover hearing aids, but traditionally straight Medicare has not covered hearing aids.” Zwolan says this may cause some Medicare beneficiaries to assume they wouldn’t be covered for cochlear implants. “I think it’s important for us to get the information out that yes, Medicare does cover cochlear implants and now they cover them even better than they did in the past.”

The GCBH report notes the importance of educating health care providers about the impact of hearing loss on overall health and enlisting their help in supporting patients — something Zwolan cites as a priority as well. “We need physicians, primary care doctors, family medicine doctors to encourage patients to treat their hearing loss, because we all listen to what our doctor has to say.”

A procedure that changed his life

To implant the cochlear device, Scott Thompson, M.D, of Carolina Eye, Ear, Nose, & Throat Associates

inserted a small device into the bone surrounding Crosby’s ear. A second part of the device is a receiver outside of the ear that converts the sound and sends it to the inside of the implant. The outpatient surgery took about two hours and Crosby went home a few hours later. The implant was turned on and fine-tuned a few weeks later at an audiologist's office.

Crosby says the cochlear implant has completely changed his life for the better. The most striking thing to him is that little sounds that he wouldn’t even have noticed before now sound loud and clear. He recalls shortly after getting his implant when he was in the car with his wife, and she put the turn signal on. “I said, ‘Wow, that thing is loud.’”

His improved hearing has also restored Crosby’s confidence and allowed him to once again actively participate in conversations and social events.

“When you go anywhere [while experiencing hearing loss], you don’t get in with the crowd. But now? We had a big birthday party for my grandson in Columbia [South Carolina]. And everybody was talking at the same time, and I was probably 15 yards from them, and I could hear them good. I felt more important.”

Why correcting your hearing is important for your health

Research compiled by the GCBH, a collaborative from AARP and published in a June 2024 report, noted that numerous studies have shown that people with untreated hearing loss have a greater risk of dementia and are also more likely to experience a decline in overall cognitive function, including memory and learning processes.

“It’s one of our senses, and when one of our senses is dulled, it really impacts our cognition and our cognitive functioning that we have as we age,” says Zwolan, who notes that issues based inside the ear can also create a safety risk. “Part of our inner ear is hearing but the other part is balance. And as we age, our balance gets a little bit worse off too, but when we have hearing loss, we’re more at risk for falls.”

Research has linked hearing loss to problems with mental and physical health, and studies have found treating hearing loss has multiple benefits: lowering risk of falling, cutting dementia risk, easing loneliness and even helping people live longer. Zwolan says many patients see a positive impact upon getting hearing devices — but she emphasizes the earlier one seeks treatment, the better.

“One of the things that’s very important is timeliness of treatment,” Zwolan says. “We want to encourage people to treat their hearing loss sooner than has traditionally happened. Some people view it as a natural part of aging — which it is, but it’s a treatable part of aging.”

Follow these recommendations from the GCBH report to identify and treat hearing loss for your overall health:

Understand the connection between getting treatment for hearing loss and supporting brain health.
Establish a baseline hearing test and get your hearing checked periodically.
Be alert for clues that you may be experiencing hearing loss.
Use ear protection in loud environments.
Be proactive and seek treatment as early as possible.
Research the type of hearing device you need, and be sure you get the right kind of device to meet your needs (your doctor or audiologist can help guide you)

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Bobbi Dempsey is a freelance writer who has written about a variety of topics, including health and entertainment, for aarp.org and AARP The Magazine. Her work has also appeared in Parade, The New York Times, Harper’s and other outlets.