Why is having regular hearing tests essential? Well, the fact is that hearing loss can have considerable and long-term effects on your overall wellness. Getting your hearing screened regularly can help you identify hearing loss early, get care sooner, and, improve your health, wellness, and quality of life.
Getting a hearing test – who should do it?
Your health and well-being can be significantly affected by neglected hearing loss. For example, hearing loss can result in extreme social isolation. Conversations with family and friends can become more challenging, and people who suffer from hearing loss might be less likely to reach out to other people, even during routine activities like shopping or going to work. This type of social isolation can be detrimental to your mental health and, possibly somewhat surprisingly, your physical wellness.
Other health concerns can come from neglected hearing loss also. For example, neglected hearing loss has been associated with many chronic conditions, including cognitive decline and depression. Comorbidities, like high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease have also been associated with hearing loss.
So scheduling a routine hearing exam will be a good plan for pretty much everyone.
Four reasons to check your hearing
There are four significant reasons why keeping an eye on your hearing can be worthwhile to your overall health.
1. Establishing a baseline for your hearing is important
It might seem foolish to get your hearing tested while your hearing is still healthy, right? Well, there are several good reasons to take a hearing test early. The most important is that a hearing test will give us a detailed picture of your current hearing health. This will make it much easier to diagnose any changes in the future. This is particularly true because hearing loss tends to advance gradually, the first symptoms aren’t always apparent.
Getting a baseline hearing exam will help identify issues long before you notice them.
2. Early diagnosis and treatment is important
Hearing loss typically advances slowly over time. Consequently, identifying hearing loss early often means a better prognosis. This is because you’re capable of treating the condition at the earliest possible time.
Early treatment could include anything from taking measures to safeguard your hearing like using ear protection in noisy spaces to using hearing aids. Treatment can help prevent many of the associated problems listed above, such as cognitive decline, depression, and social isolation.
3. Future changes will be easier to evaluate
Your hearing loss will keep progressing even after you get diagnosed. Routine hearing tests can help you detect changes as you go along, and make changes to your treatment plan as necessary.
4. You can prevent further damage to your ears
Hearing loss that develops gradually over time is usually caused by damage. Seeing us regularly to get your hearing assessed helps you identify that damage as early as possible, and it also gives you access to a considerable resource: your hearing specialist. We can help you keep your hearing as healthy as possible by providing you with treatments, best practices, and information.
For instance, we can help you determine ways to protect your ears from day-to-day damage or develop strategies designed to help you keep sounds around you quieter.
How frequently should I get my hearing assessed?
On the earlier side, adults should wait no longer than their early twenties to start routine hearing tests. It’s usually ordinary best practice to get a hearing test every ten years thereafter unless you detect signs of hearing loss or we suggest something more often.
What should I expect my hearing exam to be like? Hearing exams are usually completely non-invasive. Typically, you simply listen for some tones in a special pair of headphones.
We will be able to help you get the treatment you require, whether you need a set of hearing aids or you simply need to safeguard your ears. And we can help you figure out what your hearing test schedule should be.