Facts and myths
What’s true and what’s not true about hearing loss.
Proven facts
Hearing loss affects your emotional well-being.
When you can hear clearly, you can enjoy the sounds of laughter, music, nature or conversations with family and friends. Hearing these sounds helps us feel part of families, communities and everything that’s going on in our lives. It makes moments more memorable and life more enjoyable. Imagine how you would feel if you couldn’t hear any of these sounds...
Hearing loss increases your chance of developing dementia.
The Royal National Institute for the Deaf say that adults with hearing loss are up to five times more likely to develop dementia.¹
Hearing loss affects your brain, it steals energy needed for memory and thinking to make up for hearing loss.²
Hearing loss is proven to accelerate your brain shrinkage.³
¹ www.rnid.org.uk
² Frontiers in Psychology
³ Johns Hopkins Medicine
Hearing loss affects your physical and mental health.
Hearing loss plays a major role in our physical and mental well-being. More and more research is linking hearing loss to dementia and cognitive decline - your hearing is impaired, your sense of space shrinks, you miss warning signs and you withdraw from social activities and situations. This leaves your physical and mental health vulnerable.
Did you know that:
Hearing loss is linked to a THREE-FOLD risk of falling.¹
Accidental injuries are up to 50% MORE likely for people with hearing loss.²
¹ Johns Hopkins Medicine
² JAMA Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
Hearing loss affects your everyday life.
Most important of all, hearing keeps you connected to the world around you. But when you suffer hearing loss, all of your conversations, interactions and shared moments are strained, which can have a big impact on you every day.
Think about it. Hearing loss means that you don’t live life to the full and feel less independent, less confident and less secure. You miss out on those once-only family milestones - a grandchild’s first words for instance. You feel left out of conversations and miss out on social activities you used to enjoy. And you frustrate your spouse or partner with constant requests to repeat themselves.
Hearing aid wearers enjoy big improvements in their home life, their sense of independence and their social life.
Common myths
It only affects old people.
In the UK, 1 in 6 of the adult population is affected by hearing loss.¹ Yet, less than 30% of those people seek help.² Many believing it’s not that big a deal, unaware of the harm they may be doing in the long run.
¹ www.hearinglink.org
² www.hearinglink.org
“In the UK, more than 40% of people over 50 years old have hearing loss, rising to more than 70% of people over the age of 70.”
It only affects your hearing.
Untreated hearing loss actually increases your risk of cognitive decline, dementia, depression and social isolation. That’s because the constant effort to understand what’s being said puts great stress on your brain. This takes resources away from short-term memory, along with other critical functions.
If your hearing loss is mild, hearing aids can wait.
In the UK, 6.7 million could benefit from wearing a hearing aid, but only about two million people wear them.¹ Even if hearing loss only slightly affects your day-to-day life, you shouldn’t wait until the problem gets much worse before correcting it. In fact, the longer you wait to get a hearing aid, the more challenging it is for an audiologist to treat your hearing loss.
¹ www.hearinglink.org
Hearing aids are clunky and ugly.
Not any more. Hearing aid technology has been revolutionised in recent years. Now you can choose from a wide range of discreet styles from receiver-in-the-canal, to hearing aids that are virtually invisible. Better still, hearing aids have seen incredible technological innovations. Modern hearing aids can track body and brain health, virtually eliminate feedback, make listening in noisy environments easier and more comfortable, stream stereo sound from TVs and radios directly to the hearing aid itself, let you talk on your phone hands-free and much more.
Hearing aids make everything sound too loud.
Although hearing aids do make sound louder, their advanced sound processing and noise-reduction technology are designed to adjust to your surroundings. Whether you’re at a noisy outdoor event or watching TV at home, your hearing aid will provide the right amount of amplification so that you can hear it comfortably.
Hearing aids will restore my hearing to normal.
Hearing aids are precisely that, aids to help you hear - they don’t cure. They help retrain your brain to pick up the sounds that hearing loss has conditioned your brain to miss. This is why getting your hearing aid to work for you is a process, not a single appointment.
I’ve tried hearing aids before and they didn’t work for me.
Hearing aid technology is rapidly advancing and innovations in hearing aid technology mean you can now enjoy clearer speech, less background noise and a much more natural listening experience. So, it’s important to go to an experienced hearing professional like David Peel for expert help, advice, diagnosis and recommendation on the best hearing aid for you.