Veteran advocate Shari Penner, National Marketing Program Manager of Heroes with Hearing Loss and Hamilton CapTel, discusses the importance of understanding and addressing the impact of hearing loss after military service.

Produced by Solinity Marketing

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Intro

Welcome to season seven of Bridge The Gap, a podcast dedicated to informing, educating, and influencing the future of housing and services for seniors. Powered by sponsors Accushield, Aline, NIC MAP Vision, Procare HR, Sage, Hamilton CapTel, Service Master, The Bridge Group Construction and Solinity. Produced by Solinity Marketing.

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00:45 - 00:55

Lucas McCurdy

Welcome to Bridge the Gap podcast, the senior living podcast with Josh and Lucas. A great day here in Nashville at the LeadingAge Conference. And we've got a great guest today. We want to welcome Shari Penner. Welcome to the show.

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00:55 - 00:57

Shari Penner

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

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00:57 - 01:33

Lucas McCurdy

We're in the Hamilton CapTel Booth with a great team. And this is a really cool topic. And I love the title. and we're not going to bury the headline here. We're going to say it heroes with Hearing loss. I love this because the Hamilton CapTel technology has been bridging the gaps in communication for over 100 years. And we cannot forget about the people that have served our country that have put their lives on the line. And it's our Veterans. You have even a personal story of how you're connected in this and why it's so, why you're so passionate about it.

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01:33 - 01:34

Shari Penner

Yeah, it definitely is my passion. so my dad is a Veteran. My husband is a proud Marine Veteran, and my father in law is a proud Marine Veteran as well. So I've never known life without living with a Veteran. and knowing all the challenges that may come along with life in general, but also with being a Veteran or family member of a Veteran.

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01:59 - 02:18

Lucas McCurdy

Wow. You're surrounded by heroes, by warriors, by warriors. So what are the particular issues that that face our Veterans in the hearing loss category that's different from other people, or is it kind of a similar thing? And it's just something that we need to give attention to?

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02:18 - 03:14

Shari Penner

Yes to both. It is very unique, though, in that during their time in service, there may have been situations that a Veteran encountered that caused that hearing loss or Tinnitus and that, that situation, that event may eventually raise up again in their hearing loss journey. For instance, we have a Veteran that we've worked closely with since we started this program, that has severe Tinnitus or the ringing in the ears. He has hearing loss as well, but it came from an explosion in his helicopter. He survived. He was not. Not everybody did. But when his Tinnitus flares up, it can sometimes trigger his PTSD. And so it's important that he manages the hearing loss and the Tinnitus, to try to help keep that PTSD at bay, if you will,

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03:14 - 03:39

Lucas McCurdy

One of the things that I've been really, happily surprised about is that this is a free service. We've gone over that, before, but sometimes when you hear that, you think, it's going to be a lot of red tape, I'm going to have to fill out a whole book of information. I'm gonna have to go through my medical history, and maybe I have to say, you know, I have Tinnitus, or maybe I don't have Tinnitus. Am I able to get this technology? Can you speak to that?

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03:39 - 04:17

Shari Penner

Yeah, absolutely. so, yes, Veterans are very used to the red tape. They're very used to all the documents that need to happen, mainly through the VA or all their, you know, their health care records and so forth. luckily with the heroes with Hearing Loss program, we provide the phones at no cost for our Veterans. Very simply, it's just one form that they fill out and send it directly back to us. It doesn't have to go through. The VA doesn't have to have their audiologist sign off on anything. It's just them attesting to the fact that they have hearing loss and could use captions to help their phone calls. Yeah, we make it as easy as possible.

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04:18 - 05:23

Josh Crisp

Well, something you said made me think about you talking about this individual with the situation, from a military event that caused this and how that was actually sort of a trigger for an even more complex situation, which is the PTSD, obviously traumatic and all that goes with that. So I'm wondering how many things that just solving the one communication issue, helps patients, individuals be able to avoid a lot of other things.

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I mean, we've talked a little bit about loneliness and isolation. If you can't communicate or have difficulty communicating, how many other things is that going to be able to communicate or, you know, become a challenge if you can't communicate. And so what are you all seeing as far as just general life improvement, when you give someone the ability to communicate with friends, loved ones, I mean, even practitioners. And I just think if you can't communicate the basic necessity of life to be able to do that, how challenging is that for these Veterans?

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05:23 - 07:16

Shari Penner

Very challenging. You know, during their time in service, they're very used to a sense of community, if you will, and they know where to go for everything and who to ask and what their job is and what everyone else's job is at the same time. and then when they're out of the service, they may not have that sense of community anymore, and become much more socially isolated. And that can trigger a lot of health issues, and a lot of negativity, if you will. It keeps them from calling their doctor.  I will venture off just a little bit here. It makes me think about my mom who is a Veteran wife who is now living alone and is having difficulty hearing whether she admits it or not.

She doesn't admit it, but I know she is. but she had a health situation come up, and used to be that she would screen all of her phone calls and make everything go to voicemail. And then she would listen to that voicemail ten times to try to get what that actually was. and she may or may not get it right, or she'd have me come an hour away to listen to it, so we can figure out what the doctor was saying to her.

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And, we were able to get her a CapTel phone so that now she can actually take her phone calls. Stay connected. It helps me feel comfortable that she's doing the right thing. If she. If her medication needs to be changed, that it's being changed the right way, that she's adjusting as her doctors say that she needs to do it. And so along with the Veterans, it’s super important that they know the correct information and that they're not just guessing and assuming that they know what they're doing with that.

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07:16 - 07:26

Lucas McCurdy

This is an actual formalized program. Heroes with Hearing Loss. How did that even get started? Is that something that you started or that Hamilton CapTel started?

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07:26 - 08:53

Shari Penner

About a decade ago, our sponsor company, Hamilton Telecommunications, began the program because there's very unique challenges, again, that some of our Veterans with hearing loss may face. They may have some physical injuries. We have another Veteran that we worked with for years who was involved in a blast. And so we had third degree burns over 70% of his body. And while he was recovering from that, he wasn't worried at all about his hearing loss. He was just focused on, becoming, well again or better. But then his hearing loss became prevalent. And more important, because he wasn't able to hear the doctors and the nurses and so on and so forth. So, yeah, it's again, it's a very unique thing. We can tell stories for hours and days about all the Veterans that we've talked to and the family members. You know, a lot of the calls and interest that we get are from spouses of Veterans because they recognize the fact that they're Veterans would like to speak with their brother or their friend who they served with. And they are not able to because they can't hear very well. And so it becomes very frustrating. The spouse may try to help out a bit with the phone calls, but it's not the same. You know, if you're not having that actual direct connection with whoever it is that you're wanting to talk to.

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08:53 - 09:52

Josh Crisp

It's very rewarding for me and Lucas to be able to bring this information to our listeners. Many of, I'm sure, haven't heard about, this not only maybe not heard about Hamilton, which is hard to believe. You guys have been around for 100 years, providing solutions, but this is a great resource. and it's awesome for us to be able to connect our listeners to resources. And as you said, we can't provide everything as senior living providers, but we can coordinate with awesome trusted providers. You've been in this space a long time. We've talked about the company culture, the tenure of your team members. And it's, it's exciting to be able to help people. And I'm sure that's a huge part of why your team stays. Because when you can see the fruits of your efforts and see the impact that you're having on Veterans and consumers, and, and bring him back, such a vital piece of who we are. And that's the ability to communicate effectively. What a great, great solution, Lucas.

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09:52 - 10:11

Lucas McCurdy

Absolutely. Thanks for spending time with us today, Shari, and sharing your stories, your personal stories and the impact stories that you've been a part of. And for our listeners that want to connect and learn more about Hamilton CapTel, just scroll down in the show notes there or go to voice.com and connect with us there. Thanks for spending time with us today.

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10:11 - 10:12

Shari Penner

Oh, thank you.

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10:12 - 10:22

Lucas McCurdy

And for our listeners that want to learn more about Hamilton or LeadingAge Conference, you can go to btgvoice.com. And thanks for listening to another great episode of Bridge the Gap.

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Outro

Thanks for listening to Bridge the Gap podcast with Josh and Lucas. Connect with the BTG network team and use your voice to influence the industry by connecting with us at btgvoice.com.

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