Something like 28 million individuals could benefit from wearing hearing aids. Needless to say, when we discuss data like that, we normally mean that those 28 million individuals would hear their surroundings a little better if they had some help (in the form of a specialized device). But your hearing aids can also help you enjoy some other health advantages.
Your mental and physical health can, as it so happens, be helped by something as easy as using hearing aids. These tiny devices can help counter (or forestall) everything from injury from a fall to depression. Your hearing aids can literally keep you on your feet.
Mental Health Advantages of Hearing Aids
The link between untreated hearing loss and cognitive decline is fairly well demonstrated by modern medical studies. Currently, the thinking is that, for a combination of mental, social, and physical causes, hearing loss can lead to an escalated risk of mental illness, like cognitive decline, anxiety, depression, and dementia.
So the mental health advantages of hearing aids shouldn’t be all that surprising.
Reducing Your Risk of Dementia
Your risk of dementia can be decreased, based on one study, by nearly 20%. That’s a fantastic benefit when all you have to do is remember to wear your hearing aids on a daily basis.
Other studies have indicated that wearing your hearing aids on a regular basis can forestall the onset of dementia by up to two years. Further research needs to be carried out to help clarify and replicate these findings, but it’s definitely encouraging.
Reduce Anxiety And Depression
Depression and anxiety are not symptoms that are unique to individuals who suffer from hearing loss. But there’s enough evidence to suggest that people with hearing loss are at a higher risk of developing both anxiety and depression as time passes.
When you have hearing aids, you tend 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 may sound much more severe, loneliness can be a serious problem for people who suffer from untreated hearing loss, caused by and exacerbating a sense of social solitude. Your overall mood can be substantially impacted by social isolation. So it can be a tremendous benefit if your hearing aids can help you continue to be socially active.
To be sure, this is connected to your hearing aids’ ability to lower the risks of depression, for example. All of these health problems, to some extent, are in some way connected.
The Physical Advantages of Hearing Aids
As your hearing impairment gets worse, there is some research that shows that you might be at a higher risk of stroke. But that particular research is obviously on the preliminary side. It’s a little simpler to recognize the more pronounced physical benefit of hearing aids: you’ll fall less often.
There are a couple of explanations for this:
- Situational awareness:
- Fall detection: Frequently, it’s getting back up after a fall that is the significant hazard, not the fall itself. Many new models of hearing aids come with fall detection built in. You can program emergency phone numbers into your phone which will be automatically called if you take a tumble.
Falling can have rather substantial health impacts, particularly as you get older. So your general health can be safeguarded by reducing damage from falls or avoiding them entirely.
Be Sure to Wear Your Hearing Aids
It’s worth noting that all of these advantages apply to individuals who suffer from hearing ailments. Hearing aids won’t, for example, help somebody with healthy hearing avoid a fall.
But if you do suffer from hearing loss, the smartest thing you can do for your hearing, and for overall health, is to wear your hearing aids.
