The Hearing Bone's connect to the WHAT?

Repost from the "Better Hearing Institute" November 12, 2013
Thought this was very good and want more people to see and read this.   Helping people hear is so  much more than just getting people to voices and background noise louder.  It's all about the improvement of a person's life with friends, family and activities they are interested in and living the lifestyle they have dreamed about.

The “hearing bone’s” connected to the what?

BHI - November 12, 2013

Hearing loss isn’t a “stand alone” condition. Not only does it affect virtually every aspect of a person’s life when left unaddressed, but hearing loss has been linked to other health conditions.

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The “Hearing Bone's” Connected to the What?
Studies Show that Hearing Loss is Connected to Other Health Conditions

Once upon a time, before people knew any better, they thought that hearing loss was simply a part of growing older—something not worth doing much about.

They were wrong.

Turns out, hearing loss isn’t fussy about age. More than half of us with hearing loss are still in the workforce. And hearing loss is a much bigger deal than we ever imagined. We need to take it seriously.

As one of the most common chronic health conditions in the United States today, hearing loss affects baby boomers, Gen Xers and every other age group. And, when left unaddressed, hearing loss affects just about every aspect of a person’s life.

The big surprise is that hearing loss has been linked to other health conditions.

Hearing loss can have unwelcome companions—like heart disease; diabetes; chronic kidney disease; depression; cognitive decline, dementia or Alzheimer’s disease; increased risk of falling; increased hospitalizations.

In fact, as studies on the link between hearing loss and other health conditions mount, we’ve begun to see how our ears—and specifically how our hearing—connect to our whole body and health.

Here’s what we know:

The very best thing to do for hearing loss is to find out if you have it as soon as possible. Then take it seriously. If deemed appropriate by a qualified hearing health care professional, treat it. Hearing aids can benefit the vast majority of people with hearing loss.

Cardiovascular and hearing health are connected. Studies show that a healthy cardiovascular system positively affects hearing. Conversely, inadequate blood flow and trauma to the blood vessels of the inner ear can contribute to hearing loss. Some experts even believe that because the inner ear is so sensitive to blood flow, it is possible that abnormalities in the cardiovascular system could be noted here earlier than in other less sensitive parts of the body—making the ear a kind of “window to the heart.”

People with diabetes are about twice as likely to have hearing loss as those without it.

Recent studies show a link between hearing loss and dementia, leading many experts to stress the importance of addressing hearing loss. One study found that seniors with hearing loss are significantly more likely to develop dementia over time than those who retain their hearing. Another found that hearing loss is associated with accelerated cognitive decline in older adults, and that those with hearing loss are more likely to develop problems thinking and remembering than older adults whose hearing is normal.

People who don’t address hearing loss are more prone to depression. Fortunately, studies show that people with hearing loss who use hearing aids often have fewer depressive symptoms, greater social engagement, and improved quality of life.

Hearing loss is tied to a three-fold risk of falling. One study found that even people with mild hearing loss were nearly three times more likely to have a history of falling.

A study of older adults showed that those with moderate chronic kidney disease had a higher prevalence of hearing loss than those of the same age without the disease.

Hospitalization is more likely for older adults with hearing loss than for their peers with normal hearing, according to a study by experts at Johns Hopkins.

A 2013-published study found that older men with hearing loss had a greater risk of dying, particularly from cardiovascular causes. But men and women who used hearing aids—even though they were older and had more severe hearing loss—had a significantly lower mortality risk than those with hearing loss who did not use hearing aids.

Most doctors don’t include hearing health as a routine part of annual exams. So ask to have your hearing tested. Once you reach middle-age, it makes sense to include hearing tests as part of your routine annual care.

It seems that the “hearing bone” may be connected to more than we originally thought.

So the next time you think you might be having trouble hearing something, listen to your ears. They may be telling you something.
For more information on hearing loss, visit www.betterhearing.org.

Why do I have to hear everything instead of only the person I'm interested in listening to?

And that is a very good question.  With today's modern hearing aids we can limit background noise a lot but we never take it all away and we never should take it all  away for a number of reasons.   I will attempt to answer this with the following points in order of importance.  Please remember that this order of importance is mine and while the reasons are valid and can be backed up with research the real reason they are in this order is more practical everyday use in our soundscape of hearing.

1. We hear on three different levels and all of these levels are important to our overall well being.
1. Some of what we hear simply connects us to our environment around us, we call this the Primitive Level of Hearing.
2. Other sounds we hear tell us of events or things going on in the acoustical environment that that let us know if we are either safe or unsafe, this is the Warning Level of hearing. 
3. Some of the sounds we hear are informational in nature, birds chirping, musical notes and speech, this is referred too as the Symbolic Level of hearing

The symbolic level of hearing is what people are most concerned about.  The  reason for this concern is that the loss of hearing acuity on this level separates us from our friends, family and social network.  In reality the symbolic level of hearing is the least of the three levels as far as our body and mind are concerned. 

The warning level of hearing is tied directly into  our limbic system in the brain.  This is our emotional, primitive brain and the action/reaction center of the brain dealing with our safety and well being.   This is the home of our flight or fight responses and is solely responsible for  our survival.  When we are disconnected from this level of hearing we have a tendency to  become paranoid as we don't know what is safe and what is not safe and every noise in the environment becomes a threat.

The primitive level of hearing lets us know we are still alive and connected to  the world around us.  When this level of hearing in interrupted we feel like we have been disconnected from the world around us and this has the greatest impact on us psychologically. 

We need to hear on all of these levels, especially with hearing aids.  To limit any one or more of these levels will cause additional stress and anxiety which the hard of hearing person does not need in their lives.  A good hearing aid fitting should cover all of these levels of hearing and not just the  symbolic level.  Hope this answer some of our original question.

Soundscape Pollution

Almost every day you hear the news shows  talking a lot about some type of pollution, especially about toxic pollution that is harmful to us, that's been found in our environment but you never hear them talking about acoustical or noise pollution.  We live in a noisy world and it is getting noisier all the time. Most of the noise we live in is, at what I consider, toxic levels.  ( Too learn more about noise pollution please click the following link for an "Overview of Noise Pollution" at http://www.healthyhearing.com/report/51541-Overview-of-noise-pollution?utm_source=Healthy+Hearing+Newsletter&utm_campaign=87acc312b6-HH_Update_Oct_16_Issue_A_B&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5239cd6b59-87acc312b6-24269257 )  By this I mean it is loud enough to either damage us physically, by damaging the structures found in the ear, or mentally, by over stimulus of the brain causing higher stress and anxiety levels or by causing us to withdraw from those social or work environments that make us uncomfortable.  This then effects the quality of our lives.   While limiting the noise in our environment would be the best response too the problem it is also the most difficult to accomplish and most likely will not happen in our lifetimes. This leaves two choices available to us.   One choice is focused on preventing or limiting the damage being done by this toxic noise and the other choice focuses on helping to over come the damage done by the toxic noise.  Neither choice is perfect and both involve a fair amount of costs but we are very limited in our options.  The first choice is using Hearing Protection when in louder acoustical environments, defined as noise levels in excess of 85 dBa as referenced by OSHA Standard for hearing protection.  Hearing protection comes in both passive and active protection.  To learn more about hearing protection please visit www.earlink.com or the Earlink blog.  The second choice is to use hearing aids to  help compensate for the damage done by noise pollution.   To learn more about the help available with hearing aids please visit www.hearingresources.com.  

Voices, telling the difference between internal and external.

The more we delve into the functioning of the brain and how we hear the more we seem to find connections to other areas and processes going on that seem so simple yet can have such an impact on how we think and act.  A new study involving how the brain’s wiring quiets the voice inside our head has just been published and I would like to share it with my readers.  If you are interested please follow this link.  http://www.hearingreview.com/news/22006-brain-wiring-quiets-the-voice-inside-your-head/  So this is why we may actually being hearing voices in our heads that we think are coming from someone or think outside our head.   What do you think?

New Study Just Published "Impairments in hearing and vision impact on mortality in older people" - the AGES-Reykjavik Study

This study was just published in the Oxford Journals (you can read the study from this link http://ageing.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/08/30/ageing.aft122.abstract?goback=%2Egde_4634927_member_275898838#%21 ).  What the study boiled down to was that "older men with Hearing Impairment were at a greater risk of dying from any cause and particularly cardiovascular causes by a factor of 25.4% over the average normal hearing male adult when followed up over a five-year period.  The question I have about this is how many if any had been treated with hearing aids and if the hearing aid wearers had shown any reduction from the non-wearer.  As we learn more and more about the "side" effects of hearing loss on individuals, mortality, earlier unset of Alzheimer, loss of grey matter density in the Auditory Cortex, and Brain Plasticity we have to wonder, those of in the hearing profession, if we are waiting too long to get amplification on individuals or are keeping the amplification current to meet their needs.   It seems the studies are show that the risks of waiting or not thinking how important our hearing is too our overall wellbeing.  In the past we have always thought of just the loss of word recognition was effected by holding off getting amplification and now the studies are starting to show a whole new realm of side effects we had no idea of that seem to have big side effects, not just to our lifestyle, but to our overall wellbeing and longevity.  Something to think about during the decision process as we move towards accepting amplification as a good and viable option.  Yes, good hearing aids are expensive but if they can help slow down or offset the side effects of a hearing impairment then that really lowers the cost of ownership I would think.

This is Hearing Resources new blog to bring technical information to the hard of hearing

With this blog we will cover our thoughts on hearing, hearing aids, what the technology does and what reasonable expectations should be for differing levels of technology.