May is the

month to bring your hearing back into focus if you're

missing parts of speech or you lose part of a

conversation.

Hearing

loss affects over 25 million Americans but with newer and

better technology available many are receiving the help

they need. Adults naturally begin losing some of their

hearing around the age of 50 and the problem can be made

worse by noise exposure, head trauma, ototoxic medicine,

and genetics.

Obtaining

help for one's hearing loss may allow a person to

continue working, make communication with family and

friends easier, or help a child learn how to speak.

There is a

significant relationship between hearing loss and

physical and psychosocial impairment. Laforge, et al,

studied 1408 elderly adults and found that persons with

visual or auditory impairment were more than three times

as likely to have a "decline in functional

health" than were unimpaired individuals, including

a higher incidence of heart disease, hypertension and

osteoarthritis.

The data

from these and other studies indicate that individuals

may experience increased feelings of isolation,

depression, loneliness, anger and frustration.

Researchers have speculated that the increased incidence

of health dysfunction may be a result of these feelings

of isolation, depression and frustration.

In my own

experiences I've seen so many lives changed for the

better when they received the help that they needed; the

quality of life for the family members improved also.

Be sure to

wear proper ear protection when exposed to any high

levels of noise such as lawn mowers. For children who

have pressure equalization tubes proper swim plugs are a

must.

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