How Hearing Loss Could Cause a Major Health Crisis

Are you familiar with the expression: “The tip of the iceberg?” 

This pithy saying demonstrates what appears on the surface is not necessarily representative of what lurks beneath. With around 48 million Americans having hearing loss, but only 10 percent of them using hearing aids, this leaves a whopping 90 percent (you do the math) with an increased chance of dementia or ending up in hospital with a broken bone. Put like that, it does indeed seem that hearing loss could cause a major health crisis.

How does Hearing Loss Affect Health?

This is an important question to answer, so let’s take a look.

• Depression: The social isolation of hearing loss can decrease self-confidence. It might be the sufferer opts to stay at home, instead of attending a noisy party where they would struggle to hear, and slowly their social circle starts to contract. This leads to feelings of isolation and depression, which can spiral out of control.
• Falls: People even with mild hearing loss have a three-fold increased risk of falling. The more severe the hearing loss the greater the risk. It’s thought this is because the brain gets ‘distracted’ trying to decode the spoken word, and forgets to look out for trip hazards. Unfortunately, it’s also clear that once a person is in hospital, those with hearing loss are statistically more likely to have longer stays, than people with normal hearing.
• Dementia: The brain prioritized hearing over other functions such as memory or the planning center in the brain. Unfortunately, unused areas quickly shrink from disuse and this is the start of cognitive dysfunction and dementia.
• Heart disease: Actually, this one is a bit cart-before-the-horse, as it’s the heart disease which causing the hearing problem. If you have hearing loss but having had a health check-up for some time, then an audiologist can spot whether the pattern of hearing loss on your test is consistent with heart disease or not. 

Salient Statistics

Consider the average age of a first time hearing aid user is 70. However, most people start to feel the effects of hearing loss from the age of 60. Those 10 years of straining to hear or getting grouchy because your partner mutters, are a lost decade where you were at greater risk of certain health conditions.    

Improve the Outlook

When the simple act of using a hearing device could protect your health, it makes scheduling a hearing test seem suddenly much more important. So don’t delay, take responsibility for you hearing and protect your health as a result. Book a hearing test today!