Besides helping you hear the birds, conversations, and your surroundings, do you really know what your hearing aids are doing for you every day?
They are improving and maintaining your relationships with family and friends. Your hearing aids are making it easier for you to understand conversations which means you can actively participate in them. Remember the days before your hearing aids? You probably did a lot of smiling and nodding even though you weren’t understanding what was being said.
While your hearing aids keep you connected to your family and friends, they are warding off feelings of loneliness and depression. Because you can better understand conversations and your surroundings, you are more likely to join in on group activities and interact with people. Psychologytoday.com states that interacting with others boosts feelings of well-being and decreases feelings of depression.
Believe it or not, your hearing aids are improving your memory. Tests have revealed an increase in percent scores for recalling words in working memory and selective attention tests in just two weeks for those who are fit with hearing aids. Yes, you did read that right, we said two weeks! You can read more about that study here: https://www.utep.edu/newsfeed/campus/professor-shows-that-hearing-aids-improve-memory-speech.html.
Because of the numerous studies and research that has recently come to light, you may already know that your hearing aids are lowering your risk for cognitive decline. Hearing loss is the most modifiable risk factor for cognitive decline and studies show that hearing aid use lowers one’s risk of this decline to those without hearing loss.
Finally, your hearing aids are keeping you safer. Wearing your hearing aids gives you the ability to better hear approaching vehicles, people, and animals. They are lowering your risk of having an accidental fall too. With your hearing aids, you are able to hear your physician and other health care providers more clearly and this lowers the chance of you becoming non-compliant to medical instruction or getting confused by them. And of course, you are better able to hear alarms and timers in your home.
So, if you are a hearing aid user, you now know the positive health benefits that your hearing aids are giving you. If you are not a hearing aid user but want all the health benefits they can provide, just give Lemme Audiology Associates a call at (814) 941-7770 to get started with a hearing aid consultation.
Kristin Seiler – Practice Representative
