Page 5 - Hear.com e-magazine

Consequences of
untreated hearing loss

Whether you are working or enjoying your There is a solution: Wearing hearing
well-earned retirement, gradual hearing aids slows the process of brain shrinkage,
loss makes life more challenging – and your as shown by a longitudinal study.**
brain feels the effects, too. People who The results of this study indicated that
have to listen carefully to every word in participants who had hearing loss but
conversations are more likely to experience wore hearing aids had the same cognitive
a significant degree of mental fatigue. abilities as people with no hearing loss.
Therefore, we recommend using hearing
With your hearing loss, it may be especially aids as soon as a hearing care professional
hard for you to hear quiet sounds. It may diagnoses you with hearing loss. If you
73% of our customers also be difficult to understand what people wait too long, your brain will “forget”
are saying in noisy environments because of
what certain sounds sound like, making
reported greater happiness the background noise. Trying to understand it harder for you to hear and understand.
during outdoor adventures. speech in loud or even quiet settings In addition, adjusting your hearing aids to
may, therefore, prove to be exhausting.
your hearing loss will take more work, as
your devices need the right settings for
Hearing loss is not only exhausting, but your brain to feel the positive effects.
it can also have serious consequences.
Since the brain stops processing the It has also been proven that hearing
sounds you can’t hear when a hearing aids significantly improve people’s
loss is present, there is a decrease in quality of life. In fact, hearing aid
neural stimulation. This may cause the users report better relationships with
brain to shrink gradually and increase the family members and friends, as well as
potential for dementia, according to a study improvements in their work life.***
published by Johns Hopkins University.

* Source: Hearing well to train your brain, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 2014
** Source: Self-Reported Hearing Loss, Hearing Aids and Cognitive Decline in
Elderly Adults: A 25-year Study, Université Bordeaux, 2015
*** Source: hear.com hearing study 2015

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