How Treating Hearing Loss Improves Your Relationships

How Treating Hearing Loss Improves Your Relationships

The modern world we live in today is a world of constant communication. Now more than ever it is so easy to contact most of your friends, family and coworkers at the touch of a button. The presence of smartphones and Internet virtually everywhere is rapidly changing how we communicate through text, memes, group chats and more. Information is everywhere and a simple search can give us the answers to almost anything we can even think to ask. Even with this constant buzz of information, communication is still the foundation of a healthy relationship, out and about, at work or at home. When there is a breakdown of communication relationships become strained and this is certainly the case for those of us who are living with hearing loss and have not treated it.

Struggling with Speech Recognition

As hearing loss progresses the ability to hear and comprehend speech will begin to suffer. It is common to misconstrue what is being communicated in conversations that include many speakers but this can become even more exaggerated when living with hearing loss. Understanding what is being said becomes frustrating as hearing loss weakens our ability to interpret between multiple voices speaking simultaneously. This comes into play at parties, gatherings, busy restaurants and sporting events. It is common for people struggling with hearing loss to ask others to repeat themselves, but often after this becomes normalized in a person’s life, they grow tired or embarrassed and refrain from asking people to repeat themselves at all. This can lead to a person isolating and socially withdrawing. Because speech and communication are key to our relationships work and fun, it is imperative to restore your understanding of speech in cases of people living with untreated hearing loss.

The Benefits of Improved Communication

Any relationship will suffer when you cannot clearly communicate whether you are at work or at home with the closest people in your life.  Fortunately, treatment with hearing aids can improve relationships in so many ways after an extended to living with strained communication due to hearing loss.

  • Improved Intimacy – Hearing loss can create a divide when people cannot understand each other.
  • Improved Independence –Hearing aids can give you the independence to go out on your own again with out having to rely on others to interpret what is being said.
  • Reduced Arguments – When miscommunication becomes a regular staple of the day conflict is not far off.

Not only is do hearing aids help your relationships but untreated hearing loss also greatly affects a person’s social life, with increased stress, anxiety, and depression. Untreated hearing loss has also been linked to risk of dementia, falls, and hospitalizations. By treating hearing loss with hearing aids, people are able to re- engage socially as they once did before hearing loss was present.

What to Do if You Are Living with Hearing Loss

Hearing loss can develop slowly over time, making it not so easy to identify right away. It can creep up on you and before you know it you are having trouble hearing even in the best of listening situations. However, if you know the common signs of hearing loss then you have the tools necessary to admit you have a problem and get your hearing tested.

Hearing Aids and Your Relationships

Once you start using hearing aids the way you interact with the world often changes drastically. You can be more connected to the people you love, feel more engaged in social situations, navigate a crowded room of conversation and even stay more connected at work. Sadly, people living with hearing loss often wait an average of seven years before they decide to take the leap and take a hearing exam. Don’t be part of this statistic. If you are noticing that you are asking people to repeat themselves more than before if is most likely not that people are not speaking clearly but an issue with your hearing. Fortunately hearing tests are quick and painless and once you know the out come, you can have the information to seek the help you need to keep your self involved with the relationships in your life that make life worth living.

Treating Hearing Loss Helps You Stay Socially Connected

Treating Hearing Loss Helps You Stay Socially Connected

If you are finding yourself asking people to repeat themselves or having trouble following conversations in a noisy environment with many people speaking at once you might not want to admit it but you are probably living with untreated hearing loss.  While no one wants to deal with hearing loss, not treating the condition can have far worse complications. Living with hearing loss doesn’t only mean having to ask people to repeat themselves or having to turn the volume on the television or radio louder than before. The affects of hearing loss bleed into every aspect of your life, including your mental health, physical health, professional success and your most precious relationships.  All of this ultimately can have major negative consequences on your social life, causing higher occurrences of depression, anxiety and social isolation.

Hearing Loss and Social Isolation

When you can not follow the conversation in group settings or have to ask people to repeat themselves over and over again it can seem like a more alluring scenario to avoid social situations all together.  This however only makes your struggle more acute. Humans are social creatures and we rely on social life to keep us engaged and satisfied with life. When you social isolate due to hearing loss your mobility becomes limited. You become be reliant on others to navigate your everyday needs impacting your self-esteem, you self-confidence and independence in navigating the world.

Being social keeps us connected to the people we are closest to and ultimately it’s these relationships that make us feel excited about life and our projects. If you cannot hear what your loved ones are trying to tell you or you feel constantly misunderstood it can have a major impact on your priceless relationships.  Not only that but if you can not hear and participate in professional setting this will have major consequences on how much your bosses and co-workers rely on you. This creates less opportunity to succeed and earn and work.

Most hearing loss develops slowly through out your life so it can often become very acute before we or our loved ones begin to notice the severity of the condition. When it becomes a challenge to hear on the phone people my often choose to stop making phone calls and reaching out as they once did. Once these social patterns become established it can become a huge hurtle to reconnect with friends and loved ones, if a hearing loss stays unaddressed and untreated.

Hearing Loss and Anxiety

Anxiety sadly can become associated with untreated hearing loss as the stress of not being able to engage in social situations becomes more and more of an issue. Not only that but traveling out into the world can be nerve racking when you can’t hear what people are saying to you or cues in traffic are harder to hear.  In this case untreated hearing loss can become a major safety concern. It’s not wonder why untreated hearing loss can cause major anxiety.

Hearing Loss and Depression

When you become socially isolated due to hearing loss depression is not far behind. When you feel Hearing loss compromises our ability to connect with others. When we aren’t able to understand others, we tend to avoid conversation all together. It is just so important to not let untreated hearing loss progress to this point. Depression is no small matter and can be detrimental to an individual’s health, especially as we age. Fortunately treatment for hearing loss is painless and easier than you might believe.

Seeking Treatment

If the people closest to you are telling you that you might have a hearing loss or you are suspecting it yourself now is as good of a time as any to seek help, before the symptoms of hearing loss progress to a heightened stage. The first step is to schedule a hearing test.  Once the audiologist or hearing health care professional has helped you understand exactly the nature of your hearing loss then you can take the leap to using hearing aids. Why delay treating hearing loss when it can mean losing so much of what we enjoy in life?  Hearing aids can improve your connectivity and restore your ability to communicate again. It is too big of a deal to ignore any longer when the benefits of treatment are so easily attainable.

Treating Hearing Loss Helps You Stay Socially Connected

Treating Hearing Loss Helps You Stay Socially Connected

If you are finding yourself asking people to repeat themselves or having trouble following conversations in a noisy environment with many people speaking at once you might not want to admit it but you are probably living with untreated hearing loss.  While no one wants to deal with hearing loss, not treating the condition can have far worse complications. Living with hearing loss doesn’t only mean having to ask people to repeat themselves or having to turn the volume on the television or radio louder than before. The affects of hearing loss bleed into every aspect of your life, including your mental health, physical health, professional success and your most precious relationships.  All of this ultimately can have major negative consequences on your social life, causing higher occurrences of depression, anxiety and social isolation.

Hearing Loss and Social Isolation

When you can not follow the conversation in group settings or have to ask people to repeat themselves over and over again it can seem like a more alluring scenario to avoid social situations all together.  This however only makes your struggle more acute. Humans are social creatures and we rely on social life to keep us engaged and satisfied with life. When you social isolate due to hearing loss your mobility becomes limited. You become be reliant on others to navigate your everyday needs impacting your self-esteem, you self-confidence and independence in navigating the world.

Being social keeps us connected to the people we are closest to and ultimately it’s these relationships that make us feel excited about life and our projects. If you cannot hear what your loved ones are trying to tell you or you feel constantly misunderstood it can have a major impact on your priceless relationships.  Not only that but if you can not hear and participate in professional setting this will have major consequences on how much your bosses and co-workers rely on you. This creates less opportunity to succeed and earn and work.

Most hearing loss develops slowly through out your life so it can often become very acute before we or our loved ones begin to notice the severity of the condition. When it becomes a challenge to hear on the phone people my often choose to stop making phone calls and reaching out as they once did. Once these social patterns become established it can become a huge hurtle to reconnect with friends and loved ones, if a hearing loss stays unaddressed and untreated.

Hearing Loss and Anxiety

Anxiety sadly can become associated with untreated hearing loss as the stress of not being able to engage in social situations becomes more and more of an issue. Not only that but traveling out into the world can be nerve racking when you can’t hear what people are saying to you or cues in traffic are harder to hear.  In this case untreated hearing loss can become a major safety concern. It’s not wonder why untreated hearing loss can cause major anxiety.

Hearing Loss and Depression

When you become socially isolated due to hearing loss depression is not far behind. When you feel Hearing loss compromises our ability to connect with others. When we aren’t able to understand others, we tend to avoid conversation all together. It is just so important to not let untreated hearing loss progress to this point. Depression is no small matter and can be detrimental to an individual’s health, especially as we age. Fortunately treatment for hearing loss is painless and easier than you might believe.

Seeking Treatment

If the people closest to you are telling you that you might have a hearing loss or you are suspecting it yourself now is as good of a time as any to seek help, before the symptoms of hearing loss progress to a heightened stage. The first step is to schedule a hearing test.  Once the audiologist or hearing health care professional has helped you understand exactly the nature of your hearing loss then you can take the leap to using hearing aids. Why delay treating hearing loss when it can mean losing so much of what we enjoy in life?  Hearing aids can improve your connectivity and restore your ability to communicate again. It is too big of a deal to ignore any longer when the benefits of treatment are so easily attainable.

The Benefits of Being Social for Older Americans

The Benefits of Being Social for Older Americans

The thought of watching the television from the comfort of the sofa may be more attractive to many senior citizens than a stroll with a friend, or a movie night. For many reasons, keeping an active social life can also slip to the lowest of a senior citizen’s list of concerns. There may be mobility or health issues to consider, or you may live too far away from family and friends.

But if you thought that not having an active social life might not negatively impact your health and longevity, you might want to think again.

The dangers of isolation

Isolation is more than a simple lonely feeling. A lack of interaction with others can result in poor mental wellbeing, high blood pressure and an overall health decline. Studies show that older adults struggling with depression and loneliness have a higher death rate than those who are more content with their lives and relationships, making social participation just as crucial as other measures to preserve emotional and physical health.

There are three main benefits of being more social as an older adult.

1. A lowered risk of Dementia

Socializing is crucial to keeping the brain active as we age, according to a study by the University of Rochester Medical Center. Having an active social life inspires us to continue learning, observe and respond to the environment around us. Conversation is a great mental exercise and can theoretically reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

2. Helps maintain independence

Seniors don’t want to feel inadequate, and they don’t have to be. You will feel more energized and in control of your own decisions with active socialization and participation in various activities, as opposed to sitting in front of the TV. You may decide to take part, for instance, in painting classes or gardening.

By being socially active and choosing different groups to meet up with, the act of making one’s own decisions can lead to a greater sense of independence. You will maintain your dignity, self-confidence, and independence when engaging with other seniors who are also healthy and active, making a happier and healthier life possible.

3. More physically healthy

A study released in The Journals of Gerontology, Behavioral Sciences and Social Sciences showed that older adults who talked to people outside their normal family circle and close friends were more likely to experience higher levels of physical activity, more positive moods and fewer negative feelings.

The rationale? The scientists indicated that while older adults may be more inactive when they’re with their close friends and family— for example, watching TV together or sitting at home — they need to physically leave the house to interact with other people and will get more exercise in that way.

A good social life takes conscious effort

Before retirement, our social lives tended to grow organically. We met friends through school or our jobs. But when we’re no longer working or studying, meeting people and staying socially active requires more of a conscious effort.

Some of these proactive measures could include volunteering with local organizations, participating in a religious group, going to a senior center for services, visiting friends or family, or joining a group that focuses on common interests. Research shows that the rewards of maintaining relationships are well worth the time and effort, no matter how we choose to socialise.

Treating hearing loss helps you be more socially active

For many seniors, there are roadblocks to staying socially active. Untreated hearing loss contributes greatly to social isolation. You may not want to be with people as much, and when you are you may not engage in conversation as much.

But that all changes when you seek treatment. Surveys show that about 8 in 10 wearers with hearing aids see improvements in their overall happiness. They record less physical and mental fatigue than non-wearers, better sleep, less stress, and stronger family relationships. The explanation is simple: hearing loss makes us feel lonely and cut off from the world by failing to hear those nearest to us in our daily lives.

New hearing aids incorporate cutting edge technology and special microphones, enabling wearers to clearly understand their speaking partner even in noisy conditions such as a crowded bar or restaurant. Some also deliver sleek styles and feature Bluetooth connectivity. That way, straight through your hearing aids, you can take cell phone calls, and stream music and TV audio.

Evergreen Audiology Clinic

Most people wait for too long before they evaluate their hearing, and live with several years of hearing loss until getting treatment. Do not make this mistake. For the sake of your social life, get your hearing tested and take control of your hearing. To schedule your hearing test, contact us at Evergreen Audiology Clinic today.

A Healthy Diet Can Lower the Risk of Hearing Loss

A Healthy Diet Can Lower the Risk of Hearing Loss

You can support your hearing in lots of ways, from reducing exposure to noise, to wearing the right kind of ear protection, but did you know that what you eat can also play a part? Two recent studies have confirmed that your diet may affect your hearing.

Study #1: A poor diet can lead to poor hearing health

A recent study that was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that young adults with inadequate early childhood diets were twice as likely to experience hearing loss as their counterparts.

Experts at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have studied the connection between diet and hearing health by analyzing the hearing of 2200 young adults in Nepal. Such young adults had already taken part in a clinical experiment that took place between 1989 and 1991, when they were elementary-age children. Researchers compared their hearing from 2006 to 2008 and found that those who has lower-than-average weight and height (as a result of malnutrition) showed signs of hearing loss significantly more often than those of normal height and weight.

Study #2: A healthy diet can lead to good hearing health

A Brigham Women’s Hospital study has suggested that eating a healthy diet can minimize the risk of developing hearing loss.

Using survey data obtained from the Nurses ‘ Health Study II Conservation of Hearing Study (CHEARS), they looked at three-year alterations in hearing sensitivity to certain frequencies of sound and found that women whose nutrition habits were more closely aligned to commonly recommended healthy dietary patterns had a significantly lower likelihood of age-related hearing loss.

To measure hearing, audiologists employed by the researchers identified changes in the pure-tone hearing levels of the participants, in order to discover the absolute quietest sound that they were capable of hearing. Then, the research team cross referenced these test results with how tightly the women’s diets adhered to the ideal of a healthy diet using on over 20 years of dietary information that had been gathered on the women.

“The association between diet and hearing sensitivity decline encompassed frequencies that are critical for speech understanding,” Curhan says.

Which nutrients should I prioritize to promote healthy hearing?

Brigham and Women’s Hospital experts confirmed that women who stuck to a healthy diet closely, such as the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet or the Alternative Mediterranean Diet (AMED) diet, were less likely than others to experience compromised hearing. Here are some of the common nutrients to be gained through these diets.

  • Folate: Folate is most commonly linked with prenatal vitamins because it is an essential nutrient to take during pregnancy. Yet folate’s advantages don’t end at birth. High intake of folate is correlated with a reduced risk of hearing loss from aging. Have your fill with spinach, kale, roman lettuce, kidney beans, chickpeas and lentils.
  • Omega-3: By upping your intake of omega-3 fatty acids, you could be delaying the arrival of hearing loss through aging. Although we usually have our fill with fish oil soft gels, more delicious ways to get enough is to eat salmon, sardines or mackerel. If you’re not into fish, you could also try walnuts or chia seeds.
  • Potassium: This is an important nutrient for regulating the fluids in your body. You may not realize that the ear is also home to a number of important fluids too! Try including some sweet potatoes or bananas in your diet.
  • Magnesium: A study of 300 respondents found that although they lived in noisy environments, those who drank a magnesium-rich drink daily were able to sustain better hearing. Food high in magnesium contains bananas, peanut butter, onions, artichokes, almonds, black beans and brown rice.
  • Vitamins C and E: Both of these vitamins have antioxidants which prohibits damage to healthy hearing-linked cells. Eating citrus fruit, almonds, sunflower oil, or peanut butter can integrate Vitamins C and E into your diet.

Evergreen Audiology Clinic

You are taking a big step towards protecting your cognition in older age by simply booking an appointment with us at Evergreen Audiology Clinic. If there is hearing loss present, we will be able to recommend hearing aids to suit your specific hearing needs.  These devices can help immensely not only on your social interactions, mood, and quality of life, but also on your capacity to concentrate as you age.

New Year’s Resolution: Get Your Hearing Tested

New Year's Resolution: Get Your Hearing Tested

The new year is already here, and for many of us, that means a new list of lofty new years resolutions. Whether you want to work out more, follow a healthier diet, or start planning for that holiday, unfortunately the numbers say you’re not going to succeed in all of your year goals.

But you might want to keep this one. When thinking of your health this year, scheduling a hearing test should rank at the top as one of the most important things you can do this year for your hearing and general health. Good hearing enhances your ability to remain socially connected and is linked to a number of health, social, and even financial benefits.

Your hearing may not be too bad yet, but changes in hearing happen gradually, and you may not have realized how bad it actually is. Perhaps it’s a little harder to understand conversation on the phone than it used to be, or you’re struggling to follow conversations, especially in groups like during that Thanksgiving dinner you hosted last year.

Trying to live your life with an untreated loss of hearing can have a greater impact than you would think. The body is remarkably good at adapting (but not healing) to maintain communication with others. You may, for example, compensate by instinctively looking to the lips of your speaker in noisy environments to help you understand better. But make no mistake, sound processing parts of your brain are being unused as a result of compromised hearing. This will mean they eventually atrophy as a result of underuse.

How common is hearing loss?

You may be surprised by the predominance of hearing loss – 360 million people develop hearing loss worldwide, including about 20 percent of Americans. This number rises to one in three from the age of 65!

With that said, less than one in three of those people aged 70 and over who would gain from hearing aids are actually using them. And what’s worse is that people wait, on average, 10 years to get their hearing treated. In that time, irreversible hearing loss will take root.

There are many reasons to get your hearing tested this year. Here are some of the most common.

1. Improve your social relationships this year

Hearing aids can help improve your relationships greatly. Using hearing aids can lead to better interaction with loved ones, on the job or in social situations. This doesn’t just mean better connections with loved ones–even the simple pleasure of regular small talk with the store clerk can add so much to your day.

2. Increase your earning potential this year

Were you aware that scheduling a hearing examination could be the first step in helping you earn more money at work? As strange as it appears, untreated hearing loss has a detrimental effect on potential earnings.

The Better Hearing Institute published a study in 2011 which found untreated hearing loss meant that people lost average of about $30,000 per year in potential income. This income shortfall was minimized by a whopping 90-100 percent when hearing aids were used. Why is this the case? Untreated hearing loss makes it harder to communicate with your co-workers on the job, leading to mistakes, miscommunications and a general reduction in your effectiveness t work.

But hearing treatment makes a big different. Approximately 91 percent of hearing aid users in a recent European study across 5 countries revealed that hearing aids were seen as “useful” or “extremely useful” in the workplace.

3. Maintain your brain health this year

Early treatment of hearing loss also has significant benefits for your brain function. A Johns Hopkins University study recently found that untreated hearing loss is associated with an increased dementia risk. Your cognitive capacities are spread more thinly when your brain is grappling to make sense of unclear sound signals. As a consequence, the brain may be exhausted by the increased cognitive load which results. This cognitive load is strongly correlated with an increased risk of dementia later on in life.

With hearing treatment however, sound signals become clearer, which means less work for your brain in noisy conditions.

Evergreen Audiology Clinic

It’s time to add a yearly hearing test to your list of annual health check ups. Even if you don’t suffer hearing loss, tracking the results will help you if your hearing declines in the future.

A hearing test is straightforward, pain free, and non-invasive–and it will not take much of your time at all. If you’ve undergone shifts in your hearing capabilities, we’ll help you determine the next steps to improving your hearing health. Contact us today at Evergreen Audiology Clinic for a hearing test!

Going Digital with Your Hearing Aids

Going Digital with Your Hearing Aids

Alongside other technical advancements, hearing aids have made huge strides, making hearing technology better than ever before. Although analog hearing aids help many people with hearing loss, the real game-changer was when hearing aids went digital.

Hearing aids have three core components: a microphone to capture sound signals, an amplifier to raise the volume and a receiver to deliver the sounds to your ears. Let’s look at the differences between analog and digital hearing aids, and explore some of the benefits that digital hearing aids have to offer.

Analog Hearing Aids

Analog hearing aids work by enhancing all of the sounds in the immediate environment.  This may sound attractive, but analog hearing aids also exacerbate sounds that you may want to avoid. This makes loud sounds even louder, making them very uncomfortable to experience.

Analog hearing aids can be difficult to wear in crowded places because they intensify any sound, and they can also make it almost impossible to hear on the telephone or watch the television in the presence of background noise. When amplifying loud sounds, there is the chance that they can even lead to additional hearing loss.

Earlier analog hearing aids were large and conspicuous. While today’s analog hearing aids have made huge strides over earlier iterations, digital hearing aids are now the preferred technology for and hearing aid user.

The digital revolution

The first commercially available digital hearing aid was released in 1995, since then, they have become even more powerful and feature-packed.

Digital hearing aids operate on the same concepts as analog, but add extra incoming sound processing to better fit the listening experience to the hearing needs of the user. A microphone continues to feed incoming sound into amplification circuits that transmit sound to an ear receiver.  They use a DSP or Digital Signal Processor to process sound.   This is a small computer chip that can interpret and control sound waves in many ways. These advanced features offered by digital hearing aids are not possible with analog equipment.

Benefits of going digital

Modern digital hearing devices will ultimately help almost every person with mild to severe hearing loss to improve his or her hearing. The explosive growth of ever more advanced technology and algorithms for digital signal processing makes automatic hearing aids the best option for improved hearing.

Digital hearing aids are special in their ability to process and isolate distracting background noise while at the same time improving the vital sound signals required for comprehension. Hearing programming can be much more fine-grained, making a prescription much closer to normal hearing than is possible with conventional analog instruments.

Digital hearing aids offer even more benefits. They can:

  • enhance or suppress certain frequencies and patterns of noise.
  • move sounds to more appropriate ranges.
  • provide multiple listening modes for different conditions or situations.
  • be highly tailored to your unique listening needs.
  • be less likely to receive feedback, including whistling.
  • be smaller than analogue hearing aids
  • track the surroundings continuously to identify the best sound settings.
  • communicate with numerous other devices to stream content.

Directional microphones are often included in digital hearing aids. These can be used to concentrate on the voices and sounds that a person wants to hear, as well as reduce the prominence of other sounds.  Some digital hearing aids have become so sophisticated that they simply detect the environment and turn these microphones on immediately. In addition, the direction of noise can even be detected by some very advanced models.

Evergreen Audiology

Digital sound is an innovation that really pays off in your hearing health. You’ll find the latest digital technology from all the leading brands in the industry. For your hearing needs and lifestyle, we can help you in finding the digital hearing instrument that’s right for you.

For more information about digital hearing aid technology, talk to us! We will help you choose a model that suits your needs and budget. Evergreen Audiology can also help if you’re looking for an upgrade to your existing hearing aids or if you’re thinking about getting some for the first time. Our audiologist will help you identify your own hearing needs and find a solution by working with you.