Staying Fit
The top service-related medical issue for military veterans isn’t missing limbs, traumatic brain injury or even post-traumatic stress disorder.
It’s a hearing injury.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), more than 2.7 million veterans currently receive disability benefits for hearing loss or tinnitus, a ringing in the ears.
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And the actual number may be even higher. “Those are veterans who have been through the process and documented by the VA,” says Gabrielle Saunders, associate director of the National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research, a VA-funded research facility in Portland, Ore. She says that there are probably many other veterans with hearing loss that the VA hasn’t been able to document.
Veterans are 30 percent more likely than nonveterans to have severe hearing impairment, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis. Those who served after September 2001 are four times more likely. And their numbers are growing: In fiscal year 2016, 190,000 veterans were diagnosed with service-connected tinnitus, and 103,000 were diagnosed with hearing loss, according to the VA.
Most of the hearing loss and tinnitus in the military are due to noise exposure — often from gunfire, aircraft, tanks, heavy equipment and roadside bombs. Normal age-related hearing loss can make the problem worse.
It can have a devastating long-term impact, Saunders says. Veterans with tinnitus may hear a ringing, hissing or buzzing that keeps them from being able to concentrate or sleep. Hearing loss, meanwhile, may make it difficult for someone to maintain relationships with friends and family members, leading to depression, social isolation and eventual cognitive decline.
The good news is that hearing protection is now standard issue and mandatory for all active-duty service members.
How the VA Can Help
VA medical clinics provide a full range of hearing services, from diagnostic testing and counseling to implantable devices and top-of-the-line hearing aids.
Ronald Brumfield, 69, a U.S. Navy veteran who lives in Cape Cod, Mass., waited more than 20 years to get hearing aids through the VA, even though his eardrum ruptured during his service and a doctor had recommended the devices.
“I was in denial,” he says. “My father was a veteran and he wore these big hearing aids, and I didn’t want those. But it eventually got to the point where every time someone said something, I was saying, ‘What?’”
