Simulate Aging Reflection Paper

One of the most annoying aspects of my job is interviewing an elderly patient that has come into the hospital, and they have some sort of hearing impaired. Trying to have a conversation while almost yelling, and having words get lost in translation, can be very frustrating. So for this assignment, I decided to impair my hearing with ear plugs in both ears to simulate aging. I did this on two separate occasions, once at home for about a half an hour while everyone was home and I was doing my normal morning routine, then for about forty-five minutes in public with a group of friends. Initially when I put the ear plugs in at home, it wasn't too abnormal. The most noticeable difference was the background noise significantly got reduced, such as
We went out to a Mexican restaurant on a Saturday night, and right away I was having issues. There was a lot more stimuli at the restaurant, between other people, the waiter, and my friends, only taking in a fraction of the auditory information made it confusing and somewhat frustrating. I could not tell if someone was trying to engage with me if they weren't looking at me. I kept scanning the table for eye contact for a cue of where to focus my attention. I frequently did not catch my friends trying to have a conversation, because I was at the far side of the table. The person next to me had to nudge my arm in order to get my attention. One time the waiter came up behind me and asked if anyone wanted refills, I was so focused on trying to read my friend's lip across the table, that I had no idea he was even there or was talking to me. After about twenty minutes, I did start to feel somewhat isolated and noticed I was picking up my phone more, and playing on it while other people kept talking. Even though my friends where cool with me wearing the ear plugs for a short while, and besides a few laughs initially, they didn't seem to mind other than when they had to get my attention. The waiter never really said anything about it, but my friends may of clued him in on what was going on, and I just did not hear it. I could see how if this was an ongoing everyday way of life, that
I figured I would be able to compensate for it, and still go on about my day. At home, in a controlled environment, I could see how that is possible, but out in public there is just too much information you are trying to process at once, while not having one of your core senses. This project definitely showed me that I need to take care of my hearing, and that it should not be taken for granted . Even a slight impairment could have a huge affect on how I interact with others. If I do lose my hearing when I am older due to aging, I would highly consider getting hearing aids to help reduce missing information and be able to better engage if conversations with