Hearing aids could benefit approximately 28 million people. Which means that 28 million people could 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 mental and physical health can, as it turns out, be helped by something as easy as wearing hearing aids. Everything from a risk of falling to depression can be delayed or even stopped by these gadgets. In more ways than one, your hearing aids can help keep you on your feet.
Mental Health Benefits of Hearing Aids
Modern medical studies have firmly established a link between cognitive decline and hearing loss. Mental illnesses like dementia, cognitive decline, anxiety, and depression, according to current thinking, can be triggered by hearing loss as a consequence of a combination of mental, physical and social factors.
So it’s no surprise that the latest analyses has suggested that hearing aids may have substantial mental health advantages.
Dementia Risks Reduced
Your chances of dementia can be decreased, as reported by one study, by nearly 20%. That’s a wonderful advantage when all you have to do is remember to wear your hearing aids each day.
Other research has suggested that wearing your hearing aids regularly can forestall the onset of dementia by up to two years. This is really encouraging and with more research conducted to replicate and clarify these figures, we can come a long way in the fight against mental decline and illness.
Depression And Anxiety Can be Decreased
Depression and anxiety are not symptoms that are exclusive to people who suffer from hearing loss. But there is enough evidence to suggest that people who have hearing loss are at increased risk of developing both anxiety and depression as time passes.
When you have hearing aids, you tend to stay more mentally focused and socially engaged. Hearing aids can be especially helpful if those factors are contributing to depression and anxiety.
You’ll Feel Less Lonely
While it may not sound as serious or important as dementia, solitude can be a big issue for people with untreated hearing loss, social solitude often being the cause and worsening symptoms. That social isolation can cause substantial changes to your disposition. So it can be a huge benefit if your hearing aids can help you stay socially involved.
To be certain, this ties together with your hearing aids’ ability to decrease the risks of depression, for example. To some degree, all of these health concerns are linked in some manner.
The Physical Advantages of Hearing Aids
There’s some data which suggests that as hearing loss symptoms become more apparent, your risk of stroke escalates. But that particular research is definitely on the preliminary side. It’s a little easier to recognize the more pronounced physical advantage of hearing aids: you won’t fall as much.
There are a couple of explanations for this:
- Fall detection: Sometimes, it’s not the fall that’s dangerous. Instead, it’s your inability to get back up that can be a real problem. Many new designs of hearing aids have 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.
- Situational awareness:
Falling can have pretty substantial health impacts, especially as you get older. So your general health can be safeguarded by decreasing damage from falls or preventing them entirely.
Be Certain to Wear Your Hearing Aids
It’s worth keeping in mind that all of these benefits apply to individuals who have hearing conditions. Hearing aids won’t, for example, help someone with healthy hearing avoid a fall.
But wearing your hearing aids, if you do have hearing loss, is the smartest thing you can do for general health.