HEARING FACTS – DID YOU KNOW?
Exela Hearing Services, Salt Lake City LIVING WELL Magazine (formerly SENIOR Magazine)
Hearing loss happens to one of three people over 60 years old. In fact, hearing loss is the third leading chronic health condition among Americans, after arthritis and high blood pressure. People with diabetes are twice as likely to have hearing loss. Yet, it may come as a surprise to know that the typical person with hearing loss waits over five years to see a health care professional for an evaluation. The negatives in choosing to wait to see a hearing care professional until your hearing loss worsens has been well documented. They range from loss of speech understanding to social and emotional impacts to a negative economic effect on a person’s financial status.
HOW YOUR EARS WORK
Your ears are pretty amazing acoustic devices, as yet unmatched by human ingenuity. In a person with normal hearing, the ears — in combination with the brain — gather and interpret sounds. Your ears allow you to hear the voice of a loved one, the call of a songbird or a crack of thunder.
When sound waves travel through the ear canal, the vibration of your eardrum causes bones in the ear to vibrate. They work together like tiny levers to increase the sound level that reaches the inner ear. Inside the inner ear sound vibrations from the oval window travel into the fluid of the cochlea, where tiny specialized cells convert the vibrations into electrical impulses. These electrical impulses travel through the auditory nerve to various information-processing centers within your brain. These stations process the sounds to determine their origin. The impulses end in the auditory cortex within the temporal lobe and it is there that the brain sorts, processes, interprets and files information about the sound you heard.
Hearing clearly doesn’t happen for everyone. As with sight, gradual hearing loss occurs as you age. Doctors believe that heredity and chronic exposure to loud noises are the main factors that contribute to hearing loss over time. Other factors, such as earwax blockage, can prevent your ears from conducting sounds as well as they should.
TAKE THE TEST
Take the following test and learn if you may be suffering from hearing loss. If you answer “yes” to four or more questions below, we urge you to get a free, no obligation hearing evaluation at the EHS Hearing Centers in either West Jordan or Salt Lake City today.
- Do people seem to mumble or speak in a softer voice than they used to?
- Do you feel tired or irritable after a long conversation?
- Do you sometimes miss key words in a sentence, or frequently need to ask people to repeat themselves?
- When you are in a group or in a crowded restaurant is it difficult for you to follow the conversation?
- When you are together with other people, does background noise bother you?
- Do you often need to turn up the volume on your TV or radio?
- Do you find it difficult to hear the doorbell or the telephone ring?
- Is carrying on a telephone conversation difficult?
- Do you find it difficult to pinpoint where an object is (e.g. an alarm clock or a telephone) from the noise it makes?
10. Has someone close to you mentioned that you might have a problem with your hearing?
