About 28 million individuals could be helped by using hearing aids. This means that 28 million people would here their world clearer if they wore hearing aids. But your hearing aids can also help you take advantage of some other health advantages.
Your physical and mental health can, as it so happens, be improved by something as easy as wearing hearing aids. These little devices can help stop (or delay) everything from depression to fall-induced-injury. In many ways, your hearing aids can help keep you on your feet.
Hearing Aids And Mental Health Benefits
The link between untreated hearing loss and mental decline is pretty well established by modern medical studies. Mental illnesses including dementia, cognitive decline, anxiety, and depression, in line with current thinking, can be induced by hearing loss due to a mix of mental, physical and social factors.
So it’s not surprising that the latest analyses has suggested that hearing aids might have considerable mental health benefits.
Lowering Your Chances of Dementia
Your chances of dementia can be lowered, based on one study, by almost 20%. And all you need to do to take advantage of this amazing advantage is remember to wear your hearing every day.
Other studies have indicated that wearing your hearing aids on a regular basis can slow the onset of dementia by up to two years. Further research needs to be conducted to help explain and replicate these findings, but it’s definitely encouraging.
Anxiety And Depression Can be Reduced
Anxiety and depression are not symptoms that are exclusive to individuals who have hearing loss. But there is enough evidence to suggest that people with hearing loss are at a higher risk of developing both depression and anxiety as time goes on.
When you have hearing aids, you are likely to stay more tuned in mentally and socially engaged. If those were contributing factors to anxiety and depression, they can help.
You Won’t be as Lonely
While dementia might sound much more severe, for people with untreated hearing loss, isolation can be a real problem, social solitude often being the cause and worsening symptoms. That social isolation can cause substantial changes to your mood. So being able to continue to be social and connected with help from your hearing aid can be a great benefit.
To be sure, this is connected to your hearing aids’ ability to lower the risks of depression, for example. All of these health issues, to a certain degree, are in some manner linked.
Hearing Aids And Physical Advantages
There is some data which suggests that as hearing loss symptoms become more noticeable, your risk of stroke escalates. But this research is in preliminary stages. It’s a little easier to recognize the more obvious physical advantage of hearing aids: you’ll fall less frequently.
This happens for two reasons:
- Situational awareness:
- Fall detection: In some cases, it’s not the fall that’s dangerous. Rather, it’s your inability to get back up that can be a real problem. Many new models of hearing aids come with fall detection as a standard feature. You can save emergency phone numbers into your phone which will automatically be called if you take a tumble.
As you grow older falling down can have a disastrous effect on your health. So your overall health can be safeguarded by reducing damage from falls or preventing them altogether.
Wear Your Hearing Aids Everyday
It’s worth noting that all of these advantages apply to people who have hearing ailments. If your hearing is healthy, then wearing a hearing aid will probably not decrease your risk of cognitive decline, for example.
But if you do suffer from hearing loss, the best thing you can do for your hearing, and for overall health, is to wear your hearing aids.