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Healthy hearing is recognized by a majority of Americans as a priority, and yet, many procrastinate hearing examinations sometimes despite symptoms of hearing loss. Waiting to treat hearing loss can impact your mental and emotional health, your relationships and is even linked with an increased risk of dementia.
But there are ways to intervene if hearing loss makes an appearance in your life. While hearing loss is often irreversible, it doesn’t mean that a vibrant and full life is out of reach. The simple act of getting a reliable diagnosis can open doors to affirming choices, like joining a support group, acknowledging and making allowances for your hearing loss or even deciding to successfully treat hearing loss with hearing aids.
Forget those old-fashioned stigmas
As a society, we’ve come a long way in accepting the natural aging process, which can result in hearing loss. But so many cases of hearing loss aren’t related to aging at all. Rather, a majority of hearing loss is actually caused by exposure to too-loud noise. Still, we seem to be reluctant to put aside old stigmas surrounding hearing loss and hearing aids.
While eyeglasses are embraced and have ascended beyond treatment of poor sight and into the realm of fashion, we aren’t at nearly that same place with hearing aids.
Waiting to act
While there are other contributing factors surrounding the hesitance to acknowledge hearing loss besides stigmas around aging, it does seem to play at least part of the role in preventing people from seeking treatment in a timely manner. The average person with hearing aids has lived with hearing loss for a decade before deciding to intervene. That’s ten years of effortful listening, deteriorating relationships and a risk of increased isolation.
There are negative impacts to untreated hearing loss. For instance, without the ability to communicate easily and effectively, many people withdraw from daily social interaction and can become isolated. Depression and anxiety are emotional conditions associated with untreated hearing loss. Family and spousal or partner relationships have also proven to suffer when hearing loss is experienced by a person in the relationship.
But, with the right guidance and intervention, many of the associated risks can be triumphed over.
Today’s hearing aids
Early hearing aids were actually animal horns and sometimes referred to as ‘ear trumpets.’ The first electric hearing aid debuted in 1898 in the form of an inconvenient machine that was decidedly not portable. Remarkable advances in the industry came about after World War II, during which radio technology underwent an evolution. Those technologies were incorporated into hearing aids and produced the models you might associate with your grandparents. Quite an improvement for the time, but noticeable and clunky.
Like many industries, today’s hearing aids are nearly unrecognizable from their earlier ancestors due to the computer boom. Far more intelligent and powerful, many of today’s models utilize processors and are sleek, subtle and can substantially improve your hearing experience.
A vast majority of wearers recommend hearing aids
Most hearing aid wearers say that they would recommend to friends that they turn to hearing aids to treat hearing loss. Studies have shown that almost three-fourths of people report improved relationships with their families once they chose hearing aids. Moreover, hearing aids can increase social and physical mobility for people with hearing loss. By restoring confidence and lessening confusion and effort in verbal interactions, people with hearing aids are shown to have overall higher self-esteem than people with untreated hearing loss.
Hearing aids can do many impressive things, but they cannot reverse the effects of hearing loss. That being said, they can significantly improve your experience communicating with those around you. Today’s hearing aids can store and run programs based upon the listening environment you are in. They are better equipped to eliminate background noise, so that dining out or party interactions become easier and more enjoyable.
Schedule a hearing consultation today
Hearing aids are not for everyone, but they might be an effective solution for you. In order to determine what degree of hearing loss, if any, is impacting your life, make an appointment for a hearing consultation today. After undergoing a brief and painless exam, we can determine which interventions work best for you and your unique lifestyle to improve your hearing experience.