Losing Your Ability to Communicate due to Hearing Loss
Hearing loss brings with it a host of problems, ranging from the physical problems such as cardiovascular disease to falling down, to mental ones such as depression and anxiety. It may also result in the loss of your ability to communicate, which is known as aphasia.
Our brain is a miraculous organ. It is great at adapting to change and is very flexible. At times, however, this flexibility may cost us important skills such as our communication skills. With hearing loss, over time the brain grows accustomed to being unable to hear sound signals. The cells that were responsible for picking up sound signals in the brain then become reassigned to other tasks. This process is known as neuroplasticity.
Basically, neuroplasticity is your brain’s ability to become used to your inability to hear. Over time, this becomes the new normal for you and over time, your brain may begin to lose out on its ability to communicate since conversations become few and far between. Hearing loss tends to socially isolate people, and due to increased loneliness, people may forget how to speak and forget how to interpret speech sounds.
This frightening possibility is yet another reason to seek timely treatment for your hearing loss. Imagine being unable to communicate with people ever again. Being unable to understand what others around you are saying, and being unable to form words and express yourself.
Untreated hearing loss gives birth to this every alarming possibility of developing aphasia. This is why it is important to take your hearing health seriously. Hearing loss already has a large number of problems, including increased chances of developing dementia, diabetes, and other health ailments. Why add aphasia to the mix?
Our hearing can be drastically helped through the use of hearing aids to treat hearing loss. Research shows that hearing aids can help increase cognitive skills and can help prevent problems like aphasia, and even dementia.
We may not realize how important our social life is until we lose it completely. We take our speech for granted, and may become severely handicapped when we lose our ability to speak and understand speech due to hearing loss. Talk to your audiologist today about seeking help for your hearing loss and getting hearing aids.