The human body is far more interconnected than the often siloed departments of health care may sometimes suggest.
For example, whilst dental health is typically treated as an optional, even cosmetic health concern, in reality, there are a lot of mental health and long-term physical health interconnections, such as the link between gum disease and heart attacks.
Audiology and hearing are in a very similar situation; whilst hearing loss is sometimes considered to be effectively inevitable and therefore something to manage with hearing aids when it inevitably happens, like getting reading glasses.
However, in practice, people often need help with their hearing long before they realise that they do, something that an audiologist can often confirm.
Difficulty with hearing is both indicative of wider health problems and can be the cause of wider health issues, and getting the right form of technological assistance to reverse that is essential for leading a happy and healthy life.
Here are some ways hearing aids can help with this.
Hearing Aids Reduce Dementia Risk
From a physiological perspective, hearing damage that is untreated is linked to a decline in brain function and therefore the increased risk of neurological conditions such as dementia.
The reason for this is that hearing takes place not only in the ear but in the brain, with both the detection of sounds from the former and the decoding of them into legible speech in the latter.
Those areas of the brain start to get damaged the harder they have to try to understand sounds, which means that more of the brain is dedicated to processing audio, leading to changes that affect memories and cognition.
The link is known, but exactly how it manifests is not always well-understood, but if untreated hearing loss is a risk factor for dementia, a way to prevent or even reverse this is through the use of hearing aids.
Reduces Isolation And Loneliness
Just as big a concern for overall health and an even larger factor when it comes to dementia and negative health spirals, in general, is the effect hearing loss has on mental health and the consequent impact this has on physical health.
Hearing loss initially manifests in difficulties hearing people in a crowd or noisy public places such as a restaurant, bar or concert, and whilst many people with early-stage hearing loss can usually hear clearly, it is often more difficult to listen and maintain a conversation than it was before.
This can reach a point where people will avoid social situations entirely isolating themselves and getting increasingly lonely as a result.
As we are social creatures by nature, we need the ability to socialise to be happy, and this isolation can be a risk factor for dementia, as can the depression that often results.
All of this compounds with the existing neurological effects of hearing loss, and it gets to the point that hearing aids are not just useful, they are essential for preserving a higher quality of life.
Once people have a fitting appointment and hear with the aid’s assistance, the transformation can be astonishing and it can stop a negative health feedback loop from perpetuating.
