Even if hearing loss has made an appearance in your life, it’s never too late to protect the hearing you have.
The Prevalence Of Hearing Loss
It’s safe to say that you have encountered hearing loss yourself, and if not, it’s visited a close friend or family member. The chances that you or someone you know has hearing loss increases with age. One-third of people over the age of 65 live with the condition.
However, that doesn’t mean that young people are immune. In the United States, one in eight people over the age of 12 has hearing loss in both ears, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Global public health experts have sounded the alarm when it comes to younger generations and their exposure to loud noises, which is expected to cause a sharp increase in the worldwide rates of hearing loss.
What Causes Hearing Loss?
Noise and aging are the leading causes of acquired hearing loss. Both factors cause decay to occur to the cells within the inner ear, whose important work of converting sound into sound information that the brain can process, is integral to the hearing process. These inner ear cells don’t replicate or repair themselves. Instead, as our number of cells declines, so does our ability to ‘hear’ (receive input and transfer it to the brain) the full spectrum of environmental sounds.
One of the first indications of early hearing loss is trouble deciphering what people are saying. This is called ‘speech clarity’ and can cause folks to use coping mechanisms that offset the frustration of conversation. The social withdrawal and isolation that results can have devastating impacts on mental, emotional and physical health.
Protect The Hearing You Have
Hearing loss caused by both noise and aging is most likely progressive and irreversible. However, it’s also highly treatable. One of the important variables in intervening in hearing loss is residual hearing, or, the hearing we have left.
While we can’t turn back our chronological ages, we can start to protect our residual hearing starting today. Noise is a risk factor that we have a decent amount of control over. Begin to pay attention to the soundscapes you find yourself in. Are they irritatingly loud? That likely means that the volumes are actually too loud for your ears to handle safely.
Notice the volumes on your entertainment and personal devices at home. Strive to maintain a volume of midway and don’t exceed two-thirds of maximum volume.
Personal devices with earbuds or headphones can quickly soar past safe listening volumes, as high as 90 to 110 decibels. Any noise over 85 decibels has the potential to harm hearing, and as volumes climb, the window of time we can safely listen without doing permanent damage narrows. Use a 60/60 rule for headphones and earbuds, never exceeding 60 decibels for 60 minutes. If you find yourself plugged in for hours at a time, take a short break every hour or so and give your ears some quiet relief.
Using Residual Hearing
A vast majority of people wait a long time, an average of ten years, before treating their hearing loss. They rely solely on residual hearing, which seems to work okay at first, until it doesn’t. Instead of delaying treatment until things get unbearable, you’d be better served acting as soon as hearing loss appears.
That’s because hearing aids and other successful treatments work by amplifying sound directly into the ear. That technique relies on using existing pathways between the ear and the brain. The pathways that exist do so because you received stimulus, or sound information, in the past. When hearing loss occurs and that sound information begins to dry up, the pathways can become irrelevant over time.
Certainly, all stages of hearing loss can have a successful intervention. The difference is that people who maintain higher degrees of residual hearing and have endured less time with hearing loss have more accessible pathways to transport sound information from the ear to the brain.
Treating mild hearing loss with a recent arrival requires a lesser transition stage than treating severe hearing loss that has been in progress for some time. The adaptation period is less awkward and feels more successful if you choose to investigate treatment right away.
Schedule A Hearing Exam
If you’ve experienced changes in your hearing health, schedule a visit with us. We’ll lead you through a simple hearing exam to evaluate your current hearing health and determine whether or not you’re a good candidate for hearing aids.