Do you struggle with hearing loss? Living with untreated hearing loss is about so much more than having trouble hearing the phone ring, or finding conversations difficult. If you have hearing loss, you are at risk of negative emotional, physical, and mental health outcomes, and a new study reveals some frightening findings. People with hearing loss have a much higher risk of developing psychosis and other mental illnesses.
Hearing Loss and Health
When you lose your hearing, it’s not just sounds you’re losing. Think about it. When you have difficulty hearing, you may begin to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable around family and friends. For many with hearing loss, social settings become too much to handle, and they stop going to meet with friends so they can avoid that anxiety. They feel they may say the wrong thing or embarrass themselves by not understanding the conversations happening around them. This leads to feelings of extreme social isolation, and is the first step towards depression. It’s no surprise that shutting down in this way means you lose a lot of social support, and feel lonely and hopeless. Those with hearing loss are less active, are more likely to struggle with debilitating anxiety or depression, and have worse health outcomes.
Psychosis and Hearing Loss
What is psychosis? It’s a severe mental disorder in which a person loses their grip on reality. They can no longer tell which of the things they are experiencing or thinking are real. With psychosis, thoughts and feelings change as the person experiences hallucinations, delusions, and delirium. A person may see things that aren’t really there, feel uncomfortable emotions, or strongly believe that false things are true. Losing touch with what’s real and what isn’t is scary to live through, for both the person with psychosis and their loved ones. The hallucinations and delusions they face certainly feel very real, and it’s distressing to have changes in thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors.
What does any of this have to do with hearing loss? Well, if hearing loss has negative health outcomes such as isolation and reduced social support, it’s not so hard to understand. In a recent analysis of data published in the Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews Journal, researchers from the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands showed that hearing loss is connected to feelings of loneliness, and a reduction in cognitive function. This becomes a huge risk factor for psychosis. For example, auditory hallucinations are common. Have you ever thought you heard someone call your name from another room only to remember your spouse left the house half an hour earlier? This is an auditory hallucination, and is more common among those with hearing loss. The study found that hearing loss greatly increases the risk of developing disturbances like anxiety, depression, hallucinations, delusions, and delirium.
Benefits of Treating Hearing Loss
Hearing loss isn’t the only thing that can lead to psychosis, and people of all ages and all kinds of health or sickness can develop psychosis. What is true though, is that living with untreated hearing loss puts you at a much higher risk of losing your grasp on reality than your hearing friends. What you can do is simple.
Get treated for hearing loss early! The average American will wait up to seven years before getting hearing aids! In this time your hearing will continue to deteriorate, you’ll have worse health outcomes, and you are risking a mental breakdown in the form of depression, dementia, psychosis or even schizophrenia. Take control of your health and hearing. Visit us at Desert Valley Audiology for a hearing test today!
Desert Valley Audiology
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(702) 605-9133 | [email protected]