Hearing aids could help around 28 million people. Which means that 28 million people could here their environment clearer if they wore hearing aids. But there are also some other, rather unexpected health benefits that you can start to take advantage of thanks to your hearing aids.
Your physical and mental health can, as it turns out, be helped by something as simple as wearing hearing aids. Everything from a risk of falling to depression can be delayed or even stopped by these gadgets. Your hearing aids can literally help you stay on your feet.
Mental Health Benefits of Hearing Aids
Modern medical research has solidly established a connection between cognitive decline and hearing loss. Currently, the thinking is that, for a mixture of mental, social, and physical reasons, hearing loss can lead to an increased risk of mental illness, such as anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, and dementia.
So the mental health advantages of hearing aids shouldn’t be all that striking.
Lowering Your Chances of Dementia
Your chances of dementia can be reduced, according to one study, by nearly 20%. That’s a fantastic advantage when all you have to do is remember to wear your hearing aids on a daily basis.
Other research has suggested that wearing your hearing aids regularly can forestall the onset of dementia by up to a couple of years. This is very inspiring and with more research conducted to duplicate and clarify these numbers, we can come a long way in the battle against cognitive decline and illness.
Decrease Anxiety And Depression
Lots of individuals suffer from anxiety and depression even if they don’t have hearing loss. But people with hearing loss have been shown to be at a higher risk of depression and anxiety over time.
Wearing your hearing aids can help keep you socially active and mentally engaged. If those were contributing factors to anxiety and depression, they can help.
You Won’t be as Lonely
While it may not sound as serious or imperative as dementia, loneliness can be a big issue for those with untreated hearing loss, caused by and exacerbating a sense of social solitude. That social separation can cause substantial changes to your mood. So it can be an enormous advantage if your hearing aids can help you continue to be socially active.
To be certain, this ties together with your hearing aids’ ability to decrease the risks of depression, for example. To a certain extent, all of these health concerns are linked in some way.
The Physical Benefits of Hearing Aids
As your hearing impairment worsens, there is some evidence that you might be at a higher risk of having a stroke. But that particular research is definitely in the preliminary stages. It’s a little easier to recognize the more obvious physical advantage of hearing aids: you’ll fall less often.
This happens for two reasons:
- Fall detection: Frequently, 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 built in. With particular settings enabled, when you take a tumble, a call will automatically be made to one of your pre-programmed emergency contacts so they know to check up on you.
- Situational awareness: This means you’ll be more capable of steering clear of obstacles that might cause a fall.
Falling can have rather significant health impacts, particularly as you get older. So your overall health can be safeguarded by decreasing damage from falls or preventing them altogether.
Make Certain You Wear Your Hearing Aids
These advantages, it’s worth pointing out, apply to individuals who have hearing impairment. If you have healthy hearing, then using a hearing aid will most likely not decrease your risk of cognitive decline, for example.
But using your hearing aids, if you do have hearing loss, is the best thing you can do for overall health.