Mask trial by Age UK Gloucestershire

Age UK Gloucestershire is an independent, local charity affiliated to the national Age UK network; the leading charity who give help, information and advice to older people.  We were eager to trial a few clear face masks for the Let’s Be Clear campaign, to see whether clear masks could positively impact our interactions with the older people we meet through our work.

We trialled 6 different designs but found the clear mask from Craft Masks Design was the best.  The member of our team who tested this mask wore it for a few hours during which they conducted home visits, went shopping and to the theatre, as well as an eye appointment.

Our tester had a very positive experience of wearing this clear face mask, it made communicating with the people we interact with easier, perfectly illustrated by the following comments:

“I work with very old people and they are often hard of hearing and get very frustrated when I’m wearing a regular mask, as they cannot lip read. This has made both our lives slightly easier and has definitely improved communication. Lots of people commented positively on the mask whilst I wore it in public.”

“One of the people I visited couldn’t wear her hearing aids, as they needed repairing. She struggled to hear everything I said but was able to lip read because I was wearing the mask and felt that she got the gist of the conversation.”

The only negative we found was that all of the masks did fog up on occasion, including the favoured Craft Mask Design: “The mask did fog when I entered someone’s house, as did my glasses. However, I think this was more to do with the sudden change in temperature than the mask itself. I wore it to supermarkets and other venues afterwards and had no problem at all with it.”  However, other masks we tried fogged up immediately every time we wore them, so to only fog up on occasion was not a bad result!

In summary, despite the issue of fogging, which we have now found a few ways to overcome, the clear mask by Craft Mask Design made a noticeable difference in our communications with the older people we interact with regularly.

To find out more about Age UK Gloucestershire please visit www.ageuk.org.uk/gloucestershire