Hearing is one of the most important senses that keeps us connected to the world around us. Listening to the voices of our loved ones and understanding their intents and emotions through the sense of hearing is one thing that makes us human. Thus, even the slightest loss of hearing can affect our quality of life and of the people that are close to us like our partners, children, relatives, friends, or the next-door neighbour. Hearing loss can occur due to various reasons including those which may be medically treatable such as ear wax, infections, injuries etc. However, if the loss of hearing is due to damage to the innermost part of the ear, then medical treatment is not feasible. In such cases, the hearing loss can be corrected by using a hearing aid. If a hearing loss is left untreated then it may lead to worsening of the condition which may then be difficult to manage later. Even a slight hearing loss if left uncorrected for a long period of time is also known to affect our cognitive abilities such as attention, memory, and processing speed. This is mainly due to additional listening effort especially in challenging listening environments which would mean greater deployment and reliance on our cognitive abilities. A hearing aid is an electronic amplification device that can selectively amplify the sounds in the frequency range that would otherwise be missed by someone with a hearing loss. Hearing aids have become extremely small, smart and sophisticated in the last few years and can not only amplify soft sounds but can selectively enhance speech sounds as well as identify interfering background noise and suppress it. There are unfortunately a lot of myths around using hearing aids such as “they are too big”, “they don’t work”, “they make your hearing lazy”, “they pick up too much background noise” etc which obviously are unsubstantiated individual experiences and do not apply on most well fitted modern day hearing aids. On the contrary, there is abundant scientific research done in the last decade to prove that timely, consistent, and appropriate use of hearing aids facilitates better prognosis and outcomes for management of hearing loss. If you or others have noticed any changes to your hearing, then it is important that you get at least a hearing check done.
Early diagnosis and intervention are key to successful management of hearing loss. So, if after appropriate hearing assessments by an audiologist, it is determined that your hearing loss may not amenable to medical or surgical treatment, then it is essential to begin hearing aid use to correct the hearing loss at the earliest. Sometimes the earliest signs of hearing loss may be that you feel that people around you are mumbling, not speaking clearly, find it hard to follow conversation in groups, meetings/noisy places, frequently need to ask others for repeats in a conversation, may find yourself reading lips to understand conversation better or prefer the TV volume to be louder than others for clarity. Additionally, if you have a been exposed to industrial noise or other loud noises in the past or have a family history of hearing loss then it is essential that you at least get a hearing assessment done. In addition to improving the quality of your hearing, early use of hearing aids also promotes better stability and outcomes of the managing your hearing loss due to avoidance of auditory deprivation period. There is a large body of scientific research to suggest that large period of auditory deprivation is deleterious to the efficacy of hearing aid correction. Sometimes it is hard to avoid auditory deprivation as one may not be aware of their hearing loss until much later but there is enough evidence is medical research to suggest that hearing aid use is still significantly beneficial.
Hearing loss can be medically categorized into various types from mild to profound based on the severity. Recent evidence from research suggest that even a mild degree of hearing loss can have longstanding impacts on a person’s social and emotional life as well as may have consequences on aspects such as attention and memory. We live in a world which is full of various sounds that link us to the nature surrounding us. For instance, hearing the birds chirping on a distant tree or the sound of waves rumbling in the ocean bring us closer to our nature. A mild hearing loss may also affect a person’s ability to hear soft conversational speech, distant voices, and whispers. It would also impair to some degree our ability to listen to conversation in intense background noise such as restaurants, cafes, or pubs. There is also growing body of research suggesting that in older persons with hearing loss, use of hearing aids for correction can reduce the risk of dementia than those who do not use them.
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