You can wind up in the hospital if you don’t properly treat your hearing loss symptoms. You may think that this is a bit of an exaggeration. Most people think of hearing loss as an inconvenience that makes it tough to hear the TV or what somebody is saying at worst.
But the long-term health effects of untreated hearing loss is beginning to get serious attention from researchers.
What Does Hearing Loss Have to do With Your Health?
At first sight, hearing loss doesn’t appear to have much to do with other health indicators. But research carried out by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health indicates that neglected hearing loss can lead to a 50% increase in visits to the hospital over time. The risk of serious health issues rises the longer hearing loss remains untreated.
That’s a curious finding: how is your general state of health associated with your ability to hear? That question can have a complicated answer.
Hearing Health And Mental Health
Here are a number of the health issues associated with hearing loss:
- Memory can start to fail. In fact, your odds of developing dementia double with untreated hearing loss.
- Balance balance issues. Hearing loss can make it more difficult to keep your balance and maintain situational awareness.
- Higher instance of anxiety and depression. Simply put, neglected hearing loss can increase depression and anxiety, which in turn can have a strong negative impact on your physical body, to say nothing of your mental health.
Hearing Aids: An effective Solution
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 related mental decline can be halted by one basic solution: wearing a hearing aid.
Wearing a hearing aid has a powerful impact on eliminating the dangers linked to untreated hearing loss. According to the research, patients who used hearing aids for only two weeks saw:
- Improvements in brain function.
- Awareness and balance improvements.
- Reductions in traumatic brain injuries.
The researchers from Johns Hopkins studied data from 77,000 patients accumulated over around twenty years. And what they found is staggeringly simple: safeguarding your hearing is essential to preserving your health. Taking care of your hearing health also benefits your financial well-being, because being sick can be expensive.
Caring For Your Health And Your Hearing
Hearing loss is a perfectly typical part of getting older, though it’s not exclusive to aging. Hearing loss can develop at any age due to accidents, occupational hazards, or diseases.
However or whenever you lose your hearing, it’s extremely important to deal with it. Otherwise, your health could be negatively impacted.