When Gucci make hearing aids, I’ll be deaf: Sensory impairment in later life and a need to define it according to identity

This chapter examines my experience of late hearing impaired – becoming hearing impaired, being diagnosed as such and then living with this new impairment. The analysis considers this experience of impairment from the point of view of subjective and objective disability. I argue that I am currently less impaired now that I have been diagnosed as being hearing impaired than I was when I was not considered to be hearing impaired. The chapter concludes that impairment is subjective, and should be considered so. It also concludes that context and age of impairment should be considered when understanding disability.