The Impact of Untreated Hearing Loss

“I Can Hear, But I Can’t Understand”

If it sounds to you like people are mumbling a lot, if you’re missing words or parts of words in conversation, or if you’re having difficulty hearing in noisy environments, that’s your body asking for help.

The longer you deprive your brain of certain sounds, the harder it can be for your brain to process the acoustic information it receives. This can result in a continued decrease in speech understanding, which, over time, can cause people to withdraw from social situations and experience the frustrations listed below.

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Hearing Loss Can Affect Mood (Good News: So Can Wearing Hearing Aids!)

According to a survey by the National Council on Aging (NCOA), hearing-impaired people who do not wear hearing aids report higher rates of depression, anxiety, anger, and paranoia than do people who have responded to their hearing loss by wearing hearing aids.

Fortunately, there’s good news. The survey of 2,304 hearing-impaired persons—and 2,090 of their close family members and friends—also revealed that wearing hearing aids can make significant improvements in peoples’ lives.

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Hearing Loss Can Affect Income, Too

In August 2005, the Better Hearing Institute released a report titled “The Impact of Untreated Hearing Loss on Household Income”. The report details the results a of 2004 survey sent to 40,000 households — including 16,000 people with hearing loss.

The report concluded that “the hearing-impaired individual can be expected to suffer losses in compensation due to underemployment, may make mistakes on the job…and in general may experience an overall reduction in quality of life…which may negatively impact job performance.”

The author of the report also shares that he personally knows of a CEO who delayed treatment for his hearing loss until a critical [communication] error “caused him to lose a million dollar contract.” To read the report in its entirety, please follow the link on our Hearing Loss Resources page.

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Find Out Where You're At

To find out where you're at with your hearing, call your local Miracle-Ear today to schedule a FREE, friendy, no-obligation hearing consultation* and demonstration.

*Hearing test always free. Not a medical exam. Audiometric test to determine proper amplification needs only.