About 28 million people could benefit from wearing hearing aids. What this means is that 28 million people would here their world better if they wore hearing aids. But your hearing aids can also help you take advantage of some other health benefits.
It turns out that something as easy as using your hearing aids could help your mental and physical health. Everything from a risk of falling to depression can be delayed or even prevented by these gadgets. In more ways than one, your hearing aids can help you stay on your feet.
Mental Health Benefits of Hearing Aids
Modern medical research has solidly established a connection between hearing loss and cognitive decline. Mental illnesses including depression, cognitive decline, anxiety, and dementia, according to current thinking, can be induced by hearing loss due to a mix of physical, mental and social factors.
So it’s no surprise that recent analyses has suggested that hearing aids may have significant mental health benefits.
Lowering Your Risk of Dementia
According to one study, wearing your hearing aids can help decrease your risk of developing dementia by as much as 18%. That’s a wonderful benefit when all you need to do is remember to wear your hearing aids on a daily basis.
In other research, the onset of dementia was slowed by as much as two years by using hearing aids. Further research needs to be done to help clarify and replicate these findings, but it’s certainly encouraging.
Reduce Depression And Anxiety
Many people suffer from depression and anxiety even if they don’t have hearing loss. But individuals who have hearing loss have been shown to be at a higher risk of anxiety and depression over time.
Wearing your hearing aids can help you stay socially active and mentally engaged. Hearing aids can be particularly helpful if those factors are contributing to depression and anxiety.
You’ll be Less Lonely
While dementia might sound much more extreme, for people who have untreated hearing loss, loneliness can be a genuine issue, social solitude often being the cause and worsening symptoms. That social isolation can cause substantial changes to your mood. So being able to stay social and involved with help from your hearing aid can be a great advantage.
And this is a good reason why, for instance, your hearing aid can help prevent conditions like depression. To a certain extent, all of these health conditions are linked in some manner.
The Physical Benefits of Hearing Aids
As your hearing impairment gets worse, there is some research that shows that you could be at a higher risk of having a stroke. But this research is in preliminary stages. It’s a little simpler to recognize the more obvious physical advantage of hearing aids: you’ll fall less frequently.
This takes place for two reasons:
- Fall detection: Often, it’s getting back up after a fall that is the real danger, not the fall itself. Many new designs of hearing aids come with fall detection as a standard feature. You can program emergency phone numbers into your phone which will automatically be called if you take a tumble.
- Situational awareness:
Falling can have fairly significant health effects, especially as you get older. So your overall health can be protected by reducing damage from falls or preventing them altogether.
Make Certain You Wear Your Hearing Aids
These advantages, it’s worth pointing out, apply to people who have hearing impairment. Hearing aids won’t, for example, help somebody with healthy hearing avoid falling.
But if you do have hearing loss, the best thing you can do for your ears, and for the rest of your body, is to wear your hearing aids.
