Approximately 28.8 million U.S. adults could benefit from the use of hearing aids. The small but powerful devices can provide countless benefits to your life, including but not limited to:
- Tinnitus management
- Hearing protection
- Easier communication
- Reduced stress
Let’s look at these benefits a little more closely to help you understand how hearing aids can improve your daily life.
Managing Tinnitus
Tinnitus is a ringing, buzzing or clicking noise in the ears that cannot be heard from the outside. While there is no known cure for tinnitus, hearing aids can help manage its symptoms. Clinical evidence shows that hearing aids can make patients less aware of their tinnitus symptoms by masking the internal buzzing with external or white noise. With hearing aids, you may even feel more able to enjoy coffee with your friends at Urban Brew + Co. without an annoying buzzing noise in your ear.
Preventing Future Hearing Loss
Hearing aids cannot prevent hearing loss from progressing, but they can protect unnecessary acceleration of the process by continuously activating your auditory center. The auditory center is like a muscle; it requires frequent exercise to stay in shape. A study on auditory deprivation in children found that a lack of stimulation of the auditory center led to a loss of ability to process auditory information. Hearing aids can help provide the necessary sound to your auditory center to keep it engaged and stave off unnecessarily advanced hearing loss.
Easier Communication
Trouble communicating is one of the most prominent side effects of hearing loss. Hearing aids can help you communicate with your family by amplifying and localizing speech sounds and reducing irrelevant background noise to make speaking with your loved ones much easier.
Reduce Stress
Hearing loss can be an extremely stressful and emotional experience. Feeling like you can’t understand your loved ones, or hear things you feel you should, can leave you feeling stressed and lonely. Hearing aids can help reduce this stress by giving you more confidence in your daily life. Things like work meetings, family gatherings or even just listening to the radio will have greater ease and reduce the likelihood that you will have increased stress levels.
For more information on the benefits of hearing aids, contact Charleston ENT & Allergy today to make an appointment with one of our specialists.