If you can’t hear danger, you put yourself at risk

Hearing loss can affect your life in many ways. Effects can range from simple misunderstandings to full withdrawal from family and friends and major depression.

Dealing with hearing loss without professional assistance can lead to many major problems in life and have dangerous consequences.

Many aging adults who experience minor hearing loss simply turn up the volume on electronics to make sounds marginally clearer and more distinguishable. Unfortunately, untreated minor hearing loss doesn’t stay minor. Hearing loss is progressive and will get worse unless it’s detected and treated.

When hearing loss gets to the point where the patient is unable to hear conversation, they will often start to withdraw from conversation and social situations. They’ll miss audible cues that would help keep them from harm in their daily lives.

Even severe hearing loss is sometimes not enough to get the patient to seek treatment. These patients are often at the point where they are anxious, upset, and already started the slide into depression. Friends and family may find them unresponsive and difficult to communicate with.

These patients may also unknowingly be living in danger of serious injury or death. With more profound hearing loss, high pitched sounds, such as smoke and fire alarms, are almost impossible to hear. This lack of ability to hear can cause a seriously dangerous situation for patients with hearing loss who continue to live alone.

Those who live alone are at an increased risk because they often cannot hear sounds that would keep them safe. They can miss important sounds like smoke detectors, emergency alarms, the doorbell and telephone. They can miss the sounds that would alert them to danger such as the breaking of glass, or the forcing of a door late at night.

But not all dangers are loud. In fact, some may be soft: The murmuring cry of an infant, a distant fire siren, or a neighbor’s call for help.
We’ve been relying on our sense of hearing for thousands of years to warn us of potential danger, while sleeping and awake, and things are no different today — except that today there ‘s help.

If you can’t hear dangers, you put yourself, your family, and friends at higher risk. That’s why it’s important to have a hearing evaluation annually. Hearing loss happens gradually you may not even notice what you’re missing. The best thing you can do for yourself and your family is getting a free hearing evaluation from an audiologist to determine if you even have a hearing loss. If you do, at Hidden Hearing our friendly staff will guide through the path to better hearing.