Depression in Hearing Loss Patients
Many people with hearing loss go on with their lives without having their malady treated. One reason is that many people with developing hearing impairment don’t know they have it. The next reason has something to do with embarrassment. The hard of hearing may find it outrageous to admit they don’t have something normal people have.
The result of untreated hearing loss is progressive impairment as the auditory nerve network to the brain no longer receives sufficient impulses. This is why one should go to an audiologist when signs of hearing loss are felt. Not doing so would lead to a more serious ordeal.
Specialists and experts are looking into the likelihood of depression in people with hearing impairment. Statistics reveals that many people with hearing problems suffer from depression, which only in turn worsens their condition. Depression develops mainly as a consequence of inability to communicate well. They cannot hear well and so cannot have a decent conversation with anyone. Loss of confidence and self-esteem develops over time and the individual feels like isolating himself.
Hearing aids and counseling are the solution to these compounded problems. Audiologists can fit the right hearing aid for the individual to restore hearing in the most effective way. Bespoke hearing aids are not available to match an individual’s hearing impairment. Depression can be addressed through counseling by a psychologist.
Hearing impaired individuals may also suffer from tinnitus or ringing in the ears, and this is another problem most people with hearing loss has to deal with. While there is herbal treatment for tinnitus, masking devices have been reliable in helping these particular patients.
Hearing Loss and Depression « New Generation Hearing Blog:
Hearing Loss and Depression
Studies need not confirm that hearing loss can cause depression. This linkage is important because appropriate attention should be given to someone with both conditions. It’s important that a hearing impaired be evaluated for depression because it can affect his life. People with depression recede from normal daily undertakings. They would rather cringe in their rooms and avoid social contact for the fear of humiliation and embarrassment. Events like not being able to understand other people because of their muffled hearing can be difficult for some. Others don’t like going outdoors with hearing aids because they don’t want people to give them awkward glances.
It’s common for people with hearing impairment to feel bad about themselves, but it’s not necessarily healthy. If normal processes get neglected because of depression and if the social life becomes severely affected by depression, prompt psychological intervention is necessary. It’s crucial that family members are sensitive enough to watch a change in behavior of the hearing impaired. Loss of interest in practically anything, even to things that the patient used to enjoy doing, is a telltale sign of underlying depression. Depression prompts an individual to avoid friends and people—it leads to reclusion.
Depression makes hearing loss seem to be worse, but it can be addressed through behavioral modification techniques and through hearing aids. A hearing aid makes hearing better. Digital hearing aids nowadays are significantly enhanced to make hearing of speech better. Sometimes, hearing loss may also be accompanied by tinnitus (ringing or buzzing in the ears). This different condition can be dealt with through tinnitus masking treatment or through behavior modification therapies.
Are You Getting the Right Hearing Assessment?
If you think you are suffering from hearing loss, go nowhere else but to trusted audiologists. There are a number of people who consider themselves experts, giving you evaluation without going through the standard process. There is a danger here of coming up with a wrong procedure.
Consumers can make a mistake of directly going for hearing aids. Remember that you cannot just decide whether you need a hearing aid or not. You will need the expertise of an audiologist or otologist. You need to have your medical history checked because hearing loss may be caused by many factors and underlying conditions, some of which can be treated without hearing aids.
Hearing aids are usually prescribed to people who are suffering from irreversible hearing damage due to severe noise exposure and other conditions causing permanent hearing impairment. These devices need to be fitted depending on the kind of hearing loss experienced. Hearing loss can be mild to severe and only a hearing assessment can check the extent of hearing impairment to find out how to customize a hearing aid for you.
In addition, hearing loss is not usually uniform in all frequencies. Most people lose a considerable degree of hearing in some frequency ranges. Usually, the speech frequency range is affected. If this is your case, then you should have hearing aids designed to improve your speech perception.
Report to your audiologist if you are also suffering from ringing ears or tinnitus. Treatment remedies for this condition include medications like melatonin or lidocaine. Or you can go through various relaxation therapies and behavioral modification techniques.
beecareful – news – Hearing tests ‘failing consumers’:
Loud Music and Hearing Loss
Experts are now worried that more young people are susceptible to hearing loss because of loud noise. Where does this loud noise come from? Well, check out disco pubs, karaoke bars, and homes for sound volume. Check out their MP3 and iPod players. You’d find out that many teens and young adults are fond of tuning the volumes of their music players at high intensities.
Findings about people suffering from hearing loss due to loud music are compelling. From 1985 to 2008, the number of girls that got hearing loss because of exposing themselves to loud music has increased twice. This study included nearly nine thousand subjects, all of whom are females approximately 16 in age.
Studies now reveal that more people are using portable music players in the last decade. This might have caused the increase in incidence of hearing loss and tinnitus, which are signs of cochlear damage. Loud sound destroys delicate sound receptors or nerve endings in the cochlea and causes the classic symptoms of reduced hearing and emergence of phantom noise.
The danger of portable music devices heard over earbuds is that they can produce overwhelming noise to the listener that is oblivious to the outside observer. Hence, parents and friends of the individual cannot warn them that their music is too loud because only they can hear the loud music. Also, earbuds don’t have noise cancelling mechanism, and this causes the listener to increase the volume to hear the music clearer. It’s really bad to the ears!
Using a hearing aid is the best treatment for tinnitus and hearing loss, but having hearing aids stuffed in your ears can be inconvenient. Just turn down that volume and save your ears!
Dealing with Muffled Hearing
One out of ten people nowadays have hearing loss and six out of ten people with hearing loss belong to the working age bracket. That’s saddening. One it’s because we know something out there is making us more vulnerable to hearing loss. Second it’s affecting more young people. Hearing loss was once usually a problem of people at the senior age, but now we hear more people in their 20s or 30s with the condition.
How does one deal with it? How should you deal with it?
Well, obviously, you just got to recognize the symptoms. Many people don’t know they have hearing loss and they go on with their lives noticing strange signs that their hearing is going way down the drain but aren’t doing anything about it. If you can’t understand your friends, if you can understand what they’re saying, if you can’t comprehend several words a speaker is saying, and if you have a hard time listening to your friend when they are talking to you inside a noisy restaurant, then most probably you are developing hearing loss.
The best thing for you to do is go to your doctor to have your ears checked. Simple causes could be too much earwax in your ears or a hole in your eardrum. Serious causes include noise trauma in your inner ears or some tumor.
Audiologists typically advice that you wear a hearing aid, which is an electronic device that increases the volume of the sounds you hear so you could hear as normally as possible.
Inform your audiologist if you are also suffering from tinnitus (ringing in the ears). Medical treatment for tinnitus is available today.
How to Self Cure Hearing Loss:
