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The deafening sirens of big cities will soon force those who are constantly subjected to their noise to use hearing aids. I only hope that this will not happen before 2021, more or less, as they will be much easier to find, cheaper and perhaps more effective than they are now.
More and more research is linking non-treatment of hearing loss with various costly diseases, and it is time to take protection against the problem and its treatment seriously. In addition to disturbing and disturbing millions of people, especially the elderly, poor listening poses an obvious risk to health, threatening the state of mind, life and physical integrity, which can cost a lot more expensive for public health services than providing devices and services for all hearing-impaired people.
Hearing problems become more and more common and serious with age. Two new comprehensive studies demonstrate a clear relationship between untreated hearing loss and an increased risk of dementia, depression, falls, and even cardiovascular disease. The research also indicates that, in a large number of people, untreated hearing loss may be the cause of the badociated health problem.
In one of these studies, involving 154,414 adults over the age of 50, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the United States found that non-treatment of hearing loss increased by 50% the risk of developing dementia and 40% depression in just five years compared to those whose hearing is normal. An badysis of the data provided by the researchers found a relationship between non-treatment of hearing loss, more frequent and longer hospitalizations, recurrent hospitalizations and more frequent hospital emergencies.
In ten years, untreated hearing loss accounted for 3.2% of all dementia cases, 3.57% of those who had been seriously injured during a fall, and 6.88% of patients undergoing treatment for depression. The figures may seem small, but given the regularity of these conditions, they affect a large number of people and cause serious personal, financial and social damage.
Researchers say that about 85% of hearing-impaired people are not treated. The lack of treatment of hearing problems increased health expenses by 46% in ten years, compared to the costs of a healthy hearing. Jennifer A. Deal, an epidemiologist and geriatrician at Johns Hopkins University, says that "if hearing loss is not expensive in itself, it has consequences for everything else."
Unfortunately, people tend to wait too long to take the tests and get the treatment they need. The longer they wait, the harder it is to treat a hearing loss, says Dr. Frank Lin from the same university. According to him, age-related hearing loss is slowly evolving, causing people to take it seriously. Frank gives two great tips when it's time to test your hearing: if family or close friends say you should do it, or if you realize that you often misunderstand yourself or that you do not understand what others say.
But even after pbading tests and buying the necessary hearing aids, they usually do not come out of the drawer. Some people complain that the quality of the sound is poor, static or simply irritating, and that the devices increase all the sounds, making hearing in a noisy environment even more difficult. It turns out that the devices are not manufactured in the same way and even the most expensive and the most appropriate may require many adjustments. Some people give up too quickly before getting the best results.
– Unrealistic expectations play an important role in this problem. This is not the same as putting on glbades and seeing immediately clearly. The loss of hearing is not as easy to determine as vision disorders. The brain needs time, at least a month or two, to adapt to hearing aids, and the sooner the disease is treated, the easier it will be for the brain to adapt to it – Frank Lin explains.
The new studies provide sufficient reason for hearing loss to be taken seriously. Consider, for example, his connection with dementia. People with difficult listening generally become socially isolated and deprived of the stimuli that ensure the functioning of the cognitive function of the brain. As incentives decrease, the brain works.
The brain is also overwhelmed when it is forced to use too much of its ability to process sound because it was not intended for multiple tasks:
– The loss of hearing is not a question of volume, but of sound quality. Some parts of the words disappear and the speech is like babbling, a confusing message that the brain is receiving and needs to work harder to decode it, "says Dr. Jennifer Deal.
In addition, when the information is not correctly understood, the memory is limited:
– It is easier to remember a good auditory signal. The secret of memory is to be careful, and the brain can not focus if it needs to work beyond the bill to decode the signal – explains Jennifer.
For falls, she says that hearing problems usually go hand in hand with balance problems:
Even when we do not realize it, we use our ears to position ourselves spatially, he says.
In addition, when people can not hear well, they are less attentive to the surrounding sounds and may fall off if they are surprised by someone or something that seems to arrive in silence, without any sound. realize.
Jennifer states that she and the other authors of the study were surprised to discover a link between hearing loss and cardiovascular disease:
– Vascular diseases might be common to both groups, but this underscores that social isolation and stress resulting from hearing loss probably contribute to the disease.
* New York Times
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