The common assumption is that only people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s need hearing tests.
While it is true that there is a higher percentage of individuals with hearing loss in that age bracket, individuals much younger are beginning to experience significant hearing challenges.
In reality, hearing loss is not a respecter of age due to a variety of factors, such as genetics, illnesses and infections, noise damage, ototoxic substances, and so much more.
Many of the early warning signs of hearing challenges begin to show up in individuals in their 50s and 60s. Addressing your hearing loss early rather than later allows you to avoid frustrations and broken relationships as well as hearing loss’s threat to your independence and quality of life.
The team at Physicians Hearing Care wants to encourage individuals in our region to consider making hearing tests a common part of your regular preventive healthcare practices along with eye tests, dental checkups, and annual physicals.
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the reasons you might need to consider getting your hearing tested regularly while you’re still in your 60s.
Early Warning Signs of Hearing Loss
Missing part of or entire conversations in a crowded restaurant or at a family gathering because of background noise is among the most common early warning signs of hearing loss. It is related to the capacity of your ears to localize and clarify nearby conversation.
Another common early warning sign is the inability to clearly understand what someone is saying over the phone. When you speak to people in person, you pick up visual cues that help you understand what they are saying, but over the phone, you have to rely solely on your ears to make sense out of conversations.
Do the people around you complain that the volume on your television or radio is way too loud? Needing a boost in volume in order to understand dialogue from TV and radio broadcasts is also a sign that you’re not hearing as well as you used to.
Other less common early warning signs of hearing loss include ringing in your ears, also known as tinnitus, which often shows up when you are in your 50s or 60s; decreased confidence when going up and down stairs or navigating uneven terrain; and feeling frustration and exhaustion after a social event or family gathering because you had to strain too much to hear what others are saying.
The consequences that often go along with these warning signs are withdrawal from family and community events and isolating away from outings that are apt to be noisy. This isolation and withdrawal lead to a variety of negative health conditions.
Untreated Hearing Loss Contributes to Several Negative Health Conditions
In their 60s, most people do not want to deal with the stigma attached to hearing loss and hearing aids, because hearing loss is supposed to be something that only happens to really old people. Consequently, they begin to ignore, deny, or avoid admitting that they are experiencing hearing challenges.
Here’s the problem. Left untreated, hearing loss becomes progressively worse until it begins to interrupt your ability to lead a normal, active, and independent lifestyle.
In addition to making it difficult for you to communicate with your family, friends, and neighbors, untreated hearing loss has been linked to balance disorders, cognitive decline, and dementia. Psychological issues like depression, anxiety, and social isolation are also consequences that severely limit your overall health.
The good news is that by scheduling regular hearing assessments to monitor your hearing challenges, we can address your hearing loss early and prevent these negative health conditions from affecting your life.
You’re never too old—or too young!—to start having your hearing tested.
What Happens During a Hearing Assessment?
A comprehensive hearing assessment at Physicians Hearing Care involves a four-step process during a single visit, including: a personalized consultation, a thorough and noninvasive physical examination of your ears, several types of tests, and a discussion of your test results.
Personalized Consultation
Your hearing care professional will start with a conversation about you. Our discussion of things like your health history, the symptoms you are experiencing, your lifestyle (vocation, social life, hobbies and activities, etc.) allows us to identify risk factors and causes for your hearing challenges and evaluate their impact on your day-to-day life.
Physical Ear Inspection
Your audiologist will physically inspect your ears using an otoscope. What we are looking for are any physical obstructions that could be contributing to your hearing loss, such as accumulated earwax, inflammation, growths, damage to the ear canal, or damage to the eardrum.
Hearing Tests
Our noninvasive and painless hearing tests help identify the type of hearing loss you’re experiencing as well as its severity. They may include:
- Tympanometry
- Pure-Tone Audiometry
- Speech Audiometry
- Bone Conduction Test
Additional tests may be necessary in some cases, but these are the most common tests we use during your initial consultation.
A Discussion of the Results
Your hearing test results will be available during the same visit as testing. That allows your audiologist to show you your audiogram and go over what the test results show.
During your first hearing test, your audiogram may only provide us with a baseline measurement. However, that is a valuable bit of information, because it gives us a starting point to measure any changes to your hearing when you come in for your next test.
Should your results indicate that you are experiencing hearing loss, your audiologist will provide you with information about the various treatment options or interventions available for your specific type and severity of hearing loss.
Get Ahead of Your Hearing Challenges
You know the saying “Better safe than sorry,” right? Whether you are experiencing the early signs of hearing loss or not, regular hearing tests are the best way to ensure that we catch your hearing challenges before they begin to disrupt your life.
Our hearing care professionals at Physicians Hearing Care see ourselves as partners with you on a journey to better hearing, so we won’t pressure you to do anything that you don’t want to do, but we want to make ourselves available to provide proactive hearing care.
Schedule a hearing assessment with one of our doctors or call us at (865) 693-6065.
