Audiologists across the nation are celebrating Audiology Awareness Month right now. In order to help you get into the spirit of the event, we want to encourage you to invest in your hearing health. To do this, we provide an overview of some of the many benefits wearing hearing aids has to offer below.
Stronger Communication
The most obvious benefit of wearing hearing aids is strengthening your communication abilities. When you can hear better, you don’t have to ask people to repeat themselves, and you’re less likely to mishear what is said. In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lists the following benefits of hearing aids:
- “You will be able to hear speech over the telephone more clearly.
- You will be able to communicate more easily with family and friends.
- Your ability to communicate may improve in noisy listening situations (e.g. a restaurant or in a large group of people).”
Better Mood
When you can’t hear well, you may feel anxiety about mishearing someone and responding inappropriately. This can lead you to withdraw from people and activities you once enjoyed, like visiting with friends, which is a well-known risk factor for depression. Hearing aids can help. This is backed by research: a survey by the National Council on Aging found that people with untreated hearing loss are more likely to experience depression and anxiety than those who wear hearing aids.
Increased Safety
People with hearing loss are much more likely to experience an accident like a fall than people with normal hearing, reports research from Johns Hopkins Medicine. In fact, those with untreated hearing loss have a three-fold risk of falling. The researchers posit this is because of a lower overall awareness of one’s surroundings and because the brain is overwhelmed by demands on limited resources. Hearing aids can combat these risk factors.
Improved Cognition
More research by Johns Hopkins established a strong link between untreated hearing loss and cognitive decline, particularly dementia. This is because hearing loss causes social isolation, which is a risk factor for dementia, and because the strain of decoding sounds can overwhelm the brain. Hearing aids can empower you to stay social and reduce this strain.
For more information or to schedule an appointment, call LeMay Hearing & Balance today.