With the various studies being published about hearing health and cognitive health being linked, it’s understandable that you might be wondering what you can do for your body to help avoid some of the negative effects.
Thankfully, there’s one way to help your cognitive health, balance, and even your memory improve: getting your hearing tested by a hearing care professional. Annually, we get our teeth cleaned, eyes tested, and physical health checked out – when was the last time you had a hearing test?
For some more motivation, a new study done by Dr. Janet Choi from the University of Southern California came to a much more positive conclusion: regular use of hearing aids could actually help you live longer.
Dr. Choi took almost ten thousand participants with hearing loss challenges to study how hearing aids helped them with routine use.
She found that the patients who used hearing aids regularly had a 24 percent lower risk of premature mortality compared to the group that didn’t use hearing aids at all.
How Do Hearing Aids Increase My Lifespan?
While hearing aids are not the one solution to an increased lifespan, Choi emphasizes that individuals with hearing loss challenges who regularly wear their hearing aids reap the most benefits.
Choi was astounded to find that just 12 percent of her participants wore their hearing aids routinely outside of the study, despite seeing the benefits for themselves while conducting the study with her. Hearing loss has long been associated with negative stigmas linked with aging, but nowadays, the view on hearing aids is shifting.
Gone are the days of clunky, awkwardly buzzing hearing aids sitting behind your ears. Advanced hearing aid technology has come so far that the latest devices are not only significantly more powerful, but some can be fitted directly into your ear canal – totally invisible, but with tangible benefits.
Hearing loss creeps up on us; it happens gradually, and we don’t notice how it starts to affect our everyday lives until the negative effects are more obvious. Quite often, people don’t wear their hearing aids daily in the belief that they don’t need them every day, so they don’t adapt to wearing them regularly.
With the help of professional hearing care, you can see improvements across your entire body. Better balance, stronger memory, enhanced cognition skills and, of course, clear, crisp hearing – all thanks to simply getting your hearing tested or, where applicable, regularly wearing your hearing assistive devices.
Hearing care can make a huge difference to your life when taken seriously. According to Choi’s study, it could even save your life.
Concerned About Your Hearing?
If you or a loved one has been noticing struggles with your hearing recently, don’t hesitate to get it checked out. Our compassionate team are ready to help you address any sort of hearing loss challenges you may be facing.
The effect of stronger hearing goes far beyond just your ears – if you’ve read this far, you’ll know that as fact.
To schedule a hearing assessment, call us at (416) 590-9100 in Toronto or (905) 817-1010 in Mississauga
