How Hearing Aids Help Improve Your Quality of Life

03-25-2021

Woman cupping her ear with her hand and straining to listen

What you’ll learn;

  • Hearing aids can improve your quality of life by helping you recognize speech frequencies and assisting you in being alert to safety situations.
  • To stay mentally active while experiencing hearing loss, many individuals turn to hearing aids to keep them alert.
  • The success of your job and your relationships could depend on the ability to hear better, and hearing aids will assist you with both.

How Hearing Aids Improve Your Quality of Life

Anyone experiencing hearing loss knows what it’s like to miss out on things that others take for granted. Hearing loss will affect a large percentage of adults in their lifetime. Of all the work-related illnesses in the United States, hearing loss is the most common. It is also more common than vision issues, diabetes, and cancer. Sadly, depending on it’s cause, it may be a permanent issue.

Recognizing Speech Frequencies

When someone experiences hearing loss, they often become unable to discern some or all speech frequencies. This depends on the severity of the person’s hearing loss. This means being unable to recognize the small, sometimes soft speech sounds altogether, which may lead to communication problems at home, in the workplace, and in social settings.

Staying Mentally Active

For reasons unknown to researchers, hearing loss affects your mental health. Those who leave their hearing issues untreated are more likely to experience Alzheimer’s or dementia in their lifetimes. With hearing aids, that individual will remain more mentally active, which will help them avoid having to deal with those mental diseases. When you can hear the small, everyday sounds you’re used to, your brain remembers them more efficiently, which keeps it active and healthy. Additionally, amplification will assist in keeping the patient active. Better hearing and understanding means more socialization, more interactions with family and friends.

Keeping Your Job

Untreated hearing loss can affect someone in their work environment. Hearing loss can limit the tasks that a person can perform effectively. For example, many people who suffer from hearing loss have difficulty understanding conversations on the telephone. This may negatively affect work productivity. If you are unable to effectively communicate with coworkers, it could result in problems in the workplace. While there are some things you can learn and implement to improve communication with hearing issues, it’s often difficult at an older age. Hearing aids assist the wearer to remain engaged in your job, stay productive, and hear the things you need to hear to perform your job correctly.

Staying Safe

Think of all the sounds you hear each day that relates to safety. If you’re walking down the street and a truck is backing up, you’ll hear that “beep, beep, beep,” that tells you to get out of the way. If you’re driving and there’s an ambulance coming up from behind, you’ll hear the sirens. If you’re on a walk, you’ll hear the crossing signals indicating when it’s safe to cross.

When you’re at home, you have smoke and carbon monoxide alarms that indicate you should get out of the house right away. A neighbor knocking on your door or ringing your doorbell could alert you of something, and there may be an alarm that alerts you of intruders. Family members might exclaim “watch out!” when you’re about to hit your head on something or touch a hot pan, and they might warn you of other dangers as well. There are also alerts on your phone indicating when to take something out of the oven when to change a battery, and other safety issues.

As you can see, there are a lot of alarms and alerts that keep people safe every day. When someone isn’t accustomed to not being able to hear those things, they’re more likely to miss them and end up in danger. With the help of amplification as well as consistent appointments with your Audiologist, patients can rest assured that they will be hearing better and feel more at ease in their surroundings.

Strengthening Relationships

Even in a very close relationship, things can get strained when one person is more dependent on the other because of a health issue. When one person in a relationship begins to experience hearing loss, he or she may have to depend on the other for more and more typical tasks. The one experiencing hearing loss may not be able to talk on the phone or understand an instructional video. This could begin to wear on the hearing individual in the relationship, who would then have to do those things instead The individual experiencing hearing loss might turn the TV or radio volumes to an extremely high level in hopes of hearing what’s going on. This often irritates other family members, causing them to leave the room to do something on their own. Although it may seem innocent enough, these physical separations can have a huge impact on a relationship.
When individuals experiencing hearing loss decide to utilize hearing aids, these strained relationships can become strengthened again. Individuals with hearing aids will actually hear the other people, so they truly understand others’ needs. They won’t have to depend on the other people in the relationship to do things for them, and they won’t have to turn up the volume and scare the other people away. This keeps each individual in a relationship physically close to the other, which often leads to emotional strength and closeness as well.

Enjoying Social Activities

Many individuals with hearing loss find themselves becoming more and more reclusive as their hearing loss progresses. The social activities they used to enjoy might not be enjoyable anymore. If they can’t hear the music at a concert, why would they attend? If they can’t hear their friends at a party, why would they show up? Isolation is a real thing for those dealing with hearing issues, but it doesn’t have to be. With the help of amplification and the guidance of an Audiologist, these same people can enjoy social activities again. With amplification, these activities can be more enjoyable than before.

Learning More About Hearing Loss and Possible Solutions

As someone who is experiencing hearing loss, you might wonder what solutions there are to help you enjoy your life a little better. At Oliveira Audiology & Hearing Center, we are committed to your overall health. With our expertise and quality recommendations, , it’s not just your hearing that will improve, but your life altogether. Please call us to schedule a consultation for you or your loved ones.

 

Featured Image: M.Kumazawa/Shutterstock


Masks encouraged for patients.