Hearing aids could help around 28 million people. Which means that 28 million people could here their world better if they had hearing aids. But your hearing aids can also help you enjoy some other health benefits.
As it turns out, something as straight forward as wearing your hearing aids could be good for your physical and mental health. These tiny gadgets can help counter (or delay) everything from injury from a fall to depression. In more ways than one, your hearing aids can help keep you on your feet.
Mental Health Benefits of Hearing Aids
The connection between neglected hearing loss and cognitive decline is fairly well established by modern medical research. Currently, the thinking is that, for a mixture of social, mental, and physical causes, hearing loss can lead to an increased danger of mental illness, such as cognitive decline, anxiety, depression, and dementia.
So the mental health benefits of hearing aids shouldn’t be very surprising.
Dementia Risks Reduced
Your risk of dementia can be decreased, as reported by one study, by almost 20%. And all you need to do to take advantage of this awesome benefit is remember to wear your hearing every day.
Other studies have suggested that wearing your hearing aids regularly can delay the onset of dementia by as many as a couple of years. Further research needs to be conducted to help clarify and replicate these findings, but it’s certainly encouraging.
Anxiety And Depression Can be Decreased
Many people suffer from anxiety and depression even if hearing loss is not a problem for them. But people who have hearing loss have been shown to have a higher risk of depression and anxiety over time.
Wearing your hearing aids can help keep you socially active and mentally connected. Hearing aids can be especially helpful if those factors are contributing to depression and anxiety.
You Won’t Feel as Lonely
While dementia may sound much more severe, for people with neglected hearing loss, isolation can be a serious problem, social isolation often being the cause and adding fuel to the fire. Your overall mood can be significantly influenced by social isolation. So being able to continue to be social and involved thanks to your hearing aid can be a huge benefit.
To be sure, this is connected to your hearing aids’ ability to reduce the risks of depression, for example. All of these health problems, to some extent, are in some manner connected.
Hearing Aids And Physical Advantages
There is some data which indicates that as hearing loss symptoms become more noticeable, your risk of stroke goes up. But that particular research is obviously on the preliminary side. The most obvious (and noticeable) physical benefit of hearing aids is a little more straightforward: you’ll fall less often.
This takes place for two reasons:
- Situational awareness: For instance, if your pet is running up to you, you will hear them and expect them to come racing around the corner.
- 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 have 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.
As you age falling down can have a devastating impact on your health. So avoiding falls (or minimizing the damage from falling) can be a huge advantage that ripples throughout your general health.
Be Sure to Wear Your Hearing Aids
It’s worth noting that all of these benefits apply to those who suffer from hearing conditions. Hearing aids won’t, for example, help someone with healthy hearing avoid falling.
But using your hearing aids, if you do have hearing loss, is the best thing you can do for general health.
