You’re never too old to try something new—and that includes improving your hearing. Thanks to Northwestern University’s cochlear implant program, Kitty Grutzmacher, 84, went from struggling to hear with hearing aids to finding auditory success with a cochlear implant.
“As long as you’re healthy enough to undergo surgery, age is not a concern,” Krystine Mullins, an audiologist at Northwestern University, said.
Kitty Grutzmacher’s Story
Grutzmacher noticed her hearing had declined in the last year, even when she had her hearing aids in, causing her to stop socializing in groups, attending church and playing cards. Self-isolation became her norm. After consulting with the team at Northwestern, Grutzmacher was offered a cochlear implant, a surgically implanted hearing device, as a solution.
One major benefit of cochlear implants is that they greatly improve an individual’s speech understanding. Grutzmacher found this to be true. While initial hearing testing revealed that she understood only 4% of words on the AzBio Sentence Test while wearing hearing aids, Grutzmacher’s score improved to understanding 46% of words while using her cochlear implant with a hearing aid in her other ear.
Now she’s back to her busy social life, meeting friends for meals, playing cards and engaging in church activities again.
Hearing Loss Treatment in Older Adults
Hearing loss in older adults like Grutzmacher is common and often goes untreated: Fewer than one in three people over 70 who need hearing aids use them. Some of those hearing aid users, like Grutzmacher, aren’t benefiting from their devices anymore and actually need cochlear implants.
Cochlear implants were once a rare treatment for hearing loss in seniors. According to Dr. Charles Della Santina, Director of the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Implant Center, 25 years ago, “It was a novelty to implant people over 80. Now, it’s pretty routine practice.”
And unlike hearing aids, cochlear implants are covered under traditional Medicare, which expanded its requirements for cochlear implantation in 2022 to include a broader range of people.
Wondering if a cochlear implant is right for you? Schedule a consultation with our audiology team to find out.