You can wind up in the hospital if you don’t properly manage your hearing loss symptoms. I know that sounds like an exaggeration. We usually consider hearing loss as little more than a hassle – something that makes the news a bit tougher to hear or, at worst, makes you unknowingly agree to something you didn’t mean.
But new research is ringing alarm bells about the long-term health impacts of untreated hearing loss.
How is Your Health Linked to Hearing Loss?
Hearing loss doesn’t, at first glance, seem as if it has much of a link to other health concerns. But research conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that neglected hearing loss can lead to a 50% increase in hospital visits over time. The longer the hearing loss remains unmanaged, the more severe the health troubles become.
That’s a puzzling finding: what does hearing have to do with your general health? The answer is challenging.
The Connection Between Mental Health And Hearing
Here are a number of the health problems associated with hearing loss:
- Balance problems. Hearing loss can make it more difficult to keep your balance and maintain situational awareness.
- An increase in anxiety and depression. Simply put, neglected hearing loss can increase anxiety and depression, which will then have a strong negative impact on your physical body, to say nothing of your mental health.
- Memory can begin failing. As a matter of fact, your odds of developing dementia is twice as high with untreated hearing loss.
Hearing Aids: A Real Solution
There’s some good news though. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School research reveals that up to 75% of the mental decline linked to hearing loss can be stopped in its tracks by one easy solution: wearing a hearing aid.
Wearing a hearing aid has a profound impact on eliminating the risks connected to neglected hearing loss. The following improvements were revealed in people who used hearing aids for as little as two weeks:
- Improvements in brain function.
- Improvements in balance and awareness.
- Reductions in severe brain injuries.
The team from Johns Hopkins studied data from 77,000 patients collected over roughly twenty years. And the conclusion is surprisingly simple: protecting your hearing is crucial to maintaining your health. Taking care of your hearing health also benefits your finances, because being sick costs money.
Caring For Your Health And Your Hearing
Hearing loss is not exclusive to the aging process but it is a part of it. Because of accidents, occupational hazards, and disease, hearing loss can occur regardless of how old you are.
However, it’s essential to acknowledge any hearing loss you may be noticing. Otherwise, your health could be negatively impacted.