The Benefits of Treating Hearing Loss

There are few reasons to avoid hearing loss treatment, and many to pursue it. When it comes to hearing loss, lack of treatment tends to produce a cascade of negative outcomes for health & well-being, all of which are avoidable with the adoption of treatment like hearing aids. Let’s look at some of the major benefits of hearing loss treatment.

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Improving Relationships

We all know that relationships rely on communication. It’s important that we’re able to communicate our needs and wishes to our friends and loved ones, and that they can do the same and expect a response. When we develop hearing loss later in life, this obviously becomes more difficult—and sometimes impossible. Untreated hearing loss has been linked to depression and social isolation, as well as anxiety and a decrease in self-confidence. This is likely because hearing loss makes it so difficult to communicate effectively with those around us.

The relationships that tend to suffer the most are our closest ones. Indeed, a survey from 2015 conducted for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA’s) Better Hearing and Speech Month (BHSM) showed that about 35% of people with hearing loss said the relationship that was most affected by hearing loss was the one with their spouse or partner.

Hearing aids allow us to keep open our channels of communication to others. Soon after a partner with untreated hearing loss starts wearing hearing aids, a vast majority of couples indicate improvements in the relationship. Those with hearing aids also report higher degrees of optimism and self-confidence. Hearing aids also increase our independence, which allows us to rely less on our partners for “translation.”

In short, while hearing loss makes us over-reliant on our partners and less communicative with our friends and loved ones, treating hearing loss allows us to take care of ourselves enough to be there for those we care about!

Cognitive Abilities

Studies have found a strong link between hearing loss and earlier onset of cognitive decline and dementia. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) has put untreated hearing loss at the top of its list of twelve modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. While it is still unclear exactly why hearing loss tends to promote the onset of dementia, the numbers are striking, with the increase in risk for dementia increasing correspondingly with an increase in the severity of hearing loss:

Mild hearing loss - 2x risk of dementia
Moderate hearing loss - 3x risk of dementia
Severe hearing loss - 5x risk of dementia

Hearing loss makes our brain work harder in order to understand speech. It may be that this increased “cognitive load” is what drives the connection to dementia.

Hearing loss also promotes the atrophy of the auditory cortex and the reorganization of pathways in the brain. It may be that, over time, this reorganization creates a more fertile environment for dementia to set in.

It could also be that hearing loss tends to promote social isolation and a type of sensory deprivation. Our brain was built for social interactions, and having less of them may encourage problems. Similarly, with less information coming in even when we do engage socially, our brain does not get used in the normal way, and begins to change for the worse.

Hearing aids allow us to use our brain normally, which is very good for our brain health. Studies have started to show that using hearing aids can prevent the dementia that untreated hearing loss promotes.

Better Quality of Life

Those with untreated hearing loss tend to get less exercise, spend more time indoors, and see fewer people. When we can’t hear, we don’t feel as capable of moving through the world, so we tend to move around less, even within our own home.

But physical exercise, outdoor exploration, and social time are important ways that we keep our body and brain in good shape! Hearing aids restore the confidence required to move around freely, knowing that we can hear what’s happening and react to it. Indeed, those who get hearing aids tend to report having more “life space,” meaning they travel a larger area of the world and feel comfortable in it.

Contact Heritage Hearing Service today to schedule a hearing test—at our office or at your own home—and find out whether hearing aids are right for you.

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