Page 148 - Mind Games The Aging Brain and How to Keep it Healthy

132 • Chapter 5

your car is located, you can just scan that one area. The sim-
plest thing, I suppose, would be to tie something bright to
the radio antenna and look for that. I think I’ll do that!
We also become fractions of a second slower at identify-
ing specific targets in a cluttered environment. A few hun-
dredths of a second may not be important, or even noticeable
to others, when looking for your car in a parking lot. Never-
theless, this fraction-of-a-second delay could contribute to an
accident if you are driving a car. If you are traveling in a car
at 60 miles per hour (88 feet per second), a delay of just one-
tenth second results in your car being almost nine feet farther
along the road, possibly running into a stopped car in front
of you. So get your eyes tested, take your vitamins, wear
your glasses, and give yourself a little extra time to identify
objects visually.

Hearing
A gradual loss of hearing sensitivity begins in young adult-
hood. After age 50, approximately 70 percent of the popula-
tion has some form of hearing loss. Hearing loss may affect all
sound frequencies or just specific frequencies. I have a friend
named Shelly, for example, who is legally deaf. Shelly can
hear the pitch of my voice and yet cannot understand what
someone with a deep, booming, very loud voice says. It’s not
the loudness of the sound, it’s the pitch that affects her hear-
ing. Not all adults suffer from loss of hearing.

A profound loss of hearing is not normal.

It may help to have a working definition for the degrees
of hearing impairment as we continue our discussion about
hearing. This table gives you a simple measurement scale of
the degree of hearing loss you or someone you know may
experience.