You can end up in the hospital if you don’t properly treat your hearing loss symptoms. You might think that this is a bit of an exaggeration. We usually consider hearing loss as little more than an inconvenience – something that makes the news a bit tougher to hear or, at worst, makes you unwittingly agree to something you didn’t mean.
But current research is causing alarm about the long-term health effects of neglected 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 connection to other health concerns. But research conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that over time, hospital visits can increase by up to 50% for someone with untreated hearing loss. The chance of serious health problems goes up the longer hearing loss remains untreated.
That’s a puzzling finding: how is your general state of health associated with your ability to hear? That question can have a complicated answer.
The Connection Between Mental Health And Hearing
Here are a few of the health issues linked to hearing loss:
- Balance problems. Hearing loss can make it more difficult to keep your balance and maintain situational focus.
- An increase in anxiety and depression. Simply stated, untreated hearing loss can increase anxiety and depression, which will then have a strong negative effect on your physical body, to say nothing of your mental health.
- You start to lose your memory. As a matter of fact, your odds of getting dementia is twice as high with untreated hearing loss.
Hearing Aids Really Help
It’s not all doom and gloom, however. Far from it. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School research suggests that up to 75% of hearing loss associated cognitive decline can be halted by one simple solution: wearing a hearing aid.
Wearing a hearing aid has a powerful impact on eliminating the dangers linked to untreated hearing loss. The following improvements were revealed in people who used hearing aids for as little as two weeks:
- Traumatic brain injury reductions.
- Brain function improvements.
- Awareness and balance improvements.
The researchers from Johns Hopkins examined data from 77,000 patients accumulated over roughly two decades. And the conclusion is surprisingly simple: protecting your hearing is essential to maintaining your health. Being sick can be costly, so taking care of your hearing also safeguards your financial well being.
Caring For Your Health And Your Hearing
Hearing loss is not exclusive to getting older but it is a part of it. Due to accidents, disease, and occupational hazards, hearing loss can develop regardless of how old you are.
However or whenever you lose your hearing, it’s really important to address it. Otherwise, your health could be negatively impacted.