With so many causes of mental illness, hearing loss can be overlooked as a major concern. However, hearing loss does affect a person’s mental health and influences their quality of life. For example, seniors suffering from hearing loss have lower emotional vitality, affecting their overall well-being and self-efficacy.
Furthermore, adults who are hard of hearing face more chances of anxiety and depression than those without hearing problems. Meanwhile, children with hearing loss are prone to behavioral problems.
As suicide risk is becoming more of a prevalent issue resulting from depression and other mental disorders, we must learn more about how hearing loss significantly affects mental health. From that awareness, we can take steps to find a solution.
How Hearing Loss Affects Mental Health
Even people with normal hearing can get frustrated by the stresses of daily life. They can have communication challenges just like any other or may feel lonely and isolated due to their personal problems.
Imagine what people with hearing loss must feel when facing the same challenges. Their frustrations double, often leading to much greater stress, anxiety, and depression. Unsurprisingly, people with hearing loss may pull out of social interactions completely.
Here are ways hearing loss can affect people’s mental well-being.
Challenges in communication
The biggest issue with hearing impairment or loss is how difficult it is to communicate with others. The inability to hear often results in confusion and misunderstandings. People with hearing loss find it hard to follow conversations. If they feel they must ask other speakers to repeat themselves, feelings of embarrassment or inadequacy may follow. These situations quickly become stressful.
Challenges in professional life
People with hearing loss who feel that sense of inadequacy may not thrive in their workplace. Normal workplace activities like discussions, meetings, or conferences can become a problem simply because they can’t hear well. This situation may lower their productivity, resulting in isolation and job insecurity.
Social isolation and withdrawal
As conversations become too tough to follow and environments become too noisy, people with hearing loss may feel lonely and isolated from others. In the end, they may end up withdrawing themselves socially. However, self-isolation only makes their loneliness grow. Without healthy social interaction, they may lose the will to live and sink further into depression.
Self-esteem issues
Losing a primary sense has a way of messing up a person’s confidence. Unfortunately, there’s still a stigma attached to hearing loss. Being embarrassed over wearing hearing aids or asking others to repeat themselves can result in a mental block. That embarrassment will make communicating with others even more of a hurdle. This results in people with hearing loss no longer being confident, full of doubt, and questioning their self-worth.
Mental fatigue and cognitive decline
Ultimately, people with hearing loss must face diminishing their cognitive functions, which may begin with mental fatigue. Those with impaired hearing or lost hearing must work harder in everyday life. The required mental effort to keep up with others can result in fatigue and anxiety.
Struggling to process speech puts them in danger of losing their focus and memories. When they spend too much time decoding conversations, they lose the ability to remember details or focus on tasks. When their brain functions decline, they risk conditions like Alzheimer’s disease or dementia to appear.
How to Help People with Hearing Loss with Their Mental Health
We can help people with hearing loss cope with their mental health issues in three significant ways.
Educate yourself
Educating yourself about the challenges of hearing loss or hearing impairment is the first help you can give someone who’s lost their hearing. Then, you can invite someone with hearing loss to understand their condition better.
When people learn more about their condition in a safe environment, they will be more prepared to solve their problems. These solutions may include ways to treat both their hearing issues and mental health challenges.
Build a support network.
People with hearing impairment or loss must know they are not alone. Your support will help them realize that. Furthermore, various organizations and support groups exist where you and someone with hearing loss can get educated and even aid. They may provide counseling to cope with the mental health challenges of losing their hearing. Also, these groups can negate that sense of isolation often found in people with lost or impaired hearing.
Invite them to get professional help.
Untreated hearing loss can worsen a person’s physical health and mental well-being. Therefore, the solution is to get it treated.
People with hearing loss can easily go to an audiology clinic, which is becoming more common. Consulting with hearing specialists or audiologists in these clinics can get them the needed treatment. They can make appointments for hearing assessments, which will determine the treatment they need based on their degree of hearing loss.
An audiology service can most likely recommend suitable hearing aids. Hearing aid technology has come far in recent years, fitting a person’s lifestyle, appearance, and budget. They no longer carry the same stigma as before. The audiology clinic may also present other coping strategies for those with impaired or lost hearing, such as assistive listening devices or auditory training.
Conclusion
Hearing health can psychologically affect a person’s mental health. Hearing loss may result in communication and professional challenges, isolation and social withdrawal, and cognitive decline. However, you can help someone with hearing loss maintain their quality of life by offering them help through self-education and getting them professionally treated.
Get yourself and your loved ones checked for hearing health. Make an appointment today with El Dorado Hearing to maintain your and your loved one’s mental well-being.
info@ElDoradoHearing.com
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