>Hearing aids have changed my quality of life (at age 40).
I've had mine for 6 months. I'm 63 now. They have changed my life as well. I still have some tinniness but the tech has been adjusting the curve and other factors each time I visit her and this last time a few weeks ago the sound quality got much better.
There are still places where they don't work or get overwhelmed by background noise, like at a live baskeball game or football game but I can live with that. I'm now missing only a few pieces of most conversations and music sounds better as well. I also have audio dyslexia so that accounts for some inability to perceive parts of some conversations. The HA don't help with that.
One place they work for me that has some background noise is in my car. I listen to tech podscasts during my commute and most times don't have any issues unless the podcast has problems with too much dynamic range. My car (a Honda Civic) is a 2014 model and does a decent job blocking some road noise.
I was very resistant to getting hearing aids until I read about "Hearing Loss Linked to Accelerated Brain Tissue Loss" [1] and that did it. I'm trying to take reasonable steps in diet, exercise, and with nutrients to prevent or delay dementia. Like most of us here on HN I make a living with my brain and my quality of life would be impacted if I can't think through complexity and problem solving.
At thanksgiving I was talking to my father-in-law about my hearing aids and he also was resistant. He got his first pair a month ago and is extremely happy. He is 81 years old.
My doctor sells hearing aids but actually recommended that I use one of the big box store's services. With a 12 month warranty you can't really go wrong and the prices was about half of what my doctor could sell them for.
The deeply robust elder Deaf community itself is proof that the brain tissue loss described in the article is probably not due to the hearing loss itself. I have never heard of a culturally Deaf individual experiencing this kind of degeneration of the brain. If I had to hazard a hypothesis it would be on the social end of things, such as social isolation causing decreased function, similar to to the social contexts that encourage addiction.
In other words, when one loses hearing, the culture around them fails to accommodate that leading to increased anxiety, stress, and other kinds of undesirable outcomes that are shown to impact health. It is immeasurably tragic in many ways that this phenomenon is being used to sell hearing aids and more anxiety.
>It is immeasurably tragic in many ways that this phenomenon is being used to sell hearing aids and more anxiety.
I think it is plausible that areas of the brain that are used for processing sound atrophy when used less. I'm not experienced with the deaf community so can't comment on that aspect of your comment.
I came upon the article on my own. The article was not used to sell me hearing aids. But it helped me get over the stigma of having hearing aids. So for that I am grateful for having read the article and having it help my motivation. Having hearing aids for 6 months now have been valuable beyond description.
Good point, maybe its the sound processing areas. A greater question is whether areas of the brain atrophy at all due to less stimuli coming through a specific organ.
All evidence I've seen point to brain plasticity; that areas used for specific things get re-mapped to other similar functions. For example, Deaf individuals experience a strong inner voice that activates similar centers in the brain as actual voices.
I've had mine for 6 months. I'm 63 now. They have changed my life as well. I still have some tinniness but the tech has been adjusting the curve and other factors each time I visit her and this last time a few weeks ago the sound quality got much better.
There are still places where they don't work or get overwhelmed by background noise, like at a live baskeball game or football game but I can live with that. I'm now missing only a few pieces of most conversations and music sounds better as well. I also have audio dyslexia so that accounts for some inability to perceive parts of some conversations. The HA don't help with that.
One place they work for me that has some background noise is in my car. I listen to tech podscasts during my commute and most times don't have any issues unless the podcast has problems with too much dynamic range. My car (a Honda Civic) is a 2014 model and does a decent job blocking some road noise.
I was very resistant to getting hearing aids until I read about "Hearing Loss Linked to Accelerated Brain Tissue Loss" [1] and that did it. I'm trying to take reasonable steps in diet, exercise, and with nutrients to prevent or delay dementia. Like most of us here on HN I make a living with my brain and my quality of life would be impacted if I can't think through complexity and problem solving.
At thanksgiving I was talking to my father-in-law about my hearing aids and he also was resistant. He got his first pair a month ago and is extremely happy. He is 81 years old.
My doctor sells hearing aids but actually recommended that I use one of the big box store's services. With a 12 month warranty you can't really go wrong and the prices was about half of what my doctor could sell them for.
[1] http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/hearing_l...