Celebrating 23 Years Why Regular Hearing Checkups Are Key to Long-Term Health

Hearing is often seen as a less significant sense in your overall health, but it plays a significant role in your overall health. By having regular hearing checkups, we can detect any hearing loss at an early stage, reduce safety concerns, avoid cognitive decline, miscommunication, and prevent social isolation, thereby improving the quality of life. 

• Early detection: Catching issues early is crucial in achieving better outcomes. Identifying hearing loss in its early stages allows for more effective interventions, such as hearing aids, therapies, or other treatments, which can help manage the condition before it worsens. The earlier we tackle these issues, the better the quality of life will be ahead of us. 
• Safety concern: The ability to hear your surroundings is critical for your safety. For instance, when you're walking, hearing a car approaching can warn you to step aside and avoid an accident. While driving, the sound of a siren or honking horns can alert you to an emergency, ensuring that you stay aware of your surroundings. Even when you are at home, being able to hear sounds like a doorbell or the kettle whistling makes you aware of your surroundings and reduces the risk of accidents. 
• Cognitive Decline: The relationship between hearing loss and cognitive decline is well-established. Studies show that individuals with hearing loss are more likely to develop dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other cognitive impairments. When someone experiences hearing loss, their brain has to work harder than usual to process sound and compensate for the loss. As the brain struggles to fill in the gaps from missing sounds, over time, this extra effort can lead to an overworked brain, which can negatively affect overall brain functionality. 
• Communication Difficulties: Having good hearing is the key to maintaining a good relationship. Miscommunication can easily happen with a person who has hearing loss. In addition, complex and noisy environments like a restaurant, family gatherings, and big meetings, will lead to increased chances of miscommunication. 
• Social Isolation: Difficulty hearing in noisy or challenging places, can lead to social isolation as people with hearing loss find it difficult to follow the group conversation. They tend to avoid any family or social gathering to prevent the need to ask people to repeat themselves multiple times when they are unable to hear. 
• Quality of Life: Hearing loss can have a significant impact on your quality of life. Hearing loss can cause miscommunication, depression, and difficulty in social interaction leading to a poor quality of life. By preventing from your hearing becoming worse, you can maintain better communication with others, stay involved in social activities, and improve your mental health resulting in improved overall happiness and satisfaction. 

Hearing checkups are not only about hearing, but they also involve your overall physical and mental health. As we age, hearing may gradually decline in which often missed until reach a more severe loss. Hence, by having regular checkups on your hearing can help detect and address any hearing problems at an early stage, preventing a more significant impact on overall well-being.

Iman, Senior Audiologist at 20dB Hearing Pavilion Bukit Jalil