Welcome to Fall Prevention Awareness—a time when we raise awareness of falls, the leading cause of injury for adults 65 and older. And if you ask the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they will tell you that “Older adult falls are common, costly, and preventable.”
Speaking of preventable, we’d like to take this space to share one of the best strategies for helping to prevent falls as you age: Get your hearing tested and treat any hearing loss you may have.
Did you know a recent study showed that, for people with hearing loss, wearing hearing aids may help protect against falls?
“We found, quite significantly, that individuals that wore hearing aids compared to those who didn’t, did show a significantly lower prevalence,” says Laura Campos, audiologist, researcher at UC Health in Colorado, and lead author of the study. “They reported fewer falls.” (Additionally, participants’ scoring on a falls risk questionnaire revealed they were at a decreased risk for falls.)
Overall, hearing aid wears had a 50% lower chance of experiencing a fall—according to the research—and those who wore hearing aids consistently/at least four hours a day had even better odds at 65% decreased likelihood.
In honor of Fall Prevention Awareness, let’s explore 3 ways better hearing can help prevent falls:
1. Helps maintain cognitive function
Untreated hearing loss can cause strain on the brain, as it must work more intensely to decipher conversations and fill in the gaps of missed words. This mental exertion (leaving less cognitive resources for thinking, memory, etc.), along with accelerated brain atrophy and social isolation associated with hearing loss, have all been linked to cognitive decline. And cognitive decline has been shown to increase the risk of falls.
“When people have cognitive decline—dementia, primarily—they’re not really well aware of their limitations or they may forget their limitations,” says Dr. Paul Takahashi, a geriatrician and internist at the Mayo Clinic. “Or, commonly what happens is, if people do have some cognitive issues—they’ve had a fall or injury—it’s hard for them…to do the therapy, or to remember to do the exercises.”
On the positive side, treating hearing loss through hearing aids is associated with a reduced risk of cognitive decline. Better hearing helps fill-in those conversational gaps and reduce social isolation. In fact, research has uncovered that improved hearing can help you think better, learn better, remember better, and reason better than before hearing loss treatment.
So, by taking care of your hearing health and simultaneously supporting your brain health, you can lower the risk of falling as you age.
2. Improves awareness
When untreated hearing loss makes the brain work harder (as mentioned above), this mental load also leaves less cognitive resources available to assist with navigating through different environments. With decreased cognizance, you may miss a step, obstacle, or important environmental sounds/cues, resulting in tripping, falling, or worse.
“Gait and balance are things most people take for granted, but they are actually very cognitively demanding,” says Dr. Frank Lin, a world-leading hearing loss researcher at Johns Hopkins University. “If hearing loss imposes a cognitive load, there may be fewer cognitive resources to help with maintaining balance and gait.”
The great news is that wearing hearing aids can help lighten that cognitive load and increase awareness. In fact, Starkey’s latest hearing technology is specifically designed to boost spatial awareness by helping you hear key environmental sounds and the start of speech more clearly. This technology also adapts hearing automatically as you move from one listening environment to another.
So wherever you go or whatever you do, you can stay safer by maintaining overall spatial awareness—thanks to better hearing.
3. Promotes physical activity, better balance
It goes without saying that regular physical activity or exercise is important throughout life. It’s shown to lower blood pressure, slow the body’s loss of muscle and bone mass, and decrease the risk of falls and serious injuries, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Fortunately, better hearing helps support all of this.
Wearing hearing aids can help you feel less isolated and more inclined to get out and participate in not only social but also physical activity. That safety-through-improved-awareness can pave the way for exercise aimed at developing physical strength, fitness, and balance.
This includes balance exercises, themselves: When you pair Starkey’s latest hearing aids with the free My Starkey app, you can take advantage of Balance Builder—a self-guided series of stability, strength, and physical awareness exercises designed to help you bolster balance and maintain overall wellness. You can also monitor the progress of your balance-building using the app’s do-it-yourself Balance Assessment.
(And while you’re at it, track and maintain other wellness activities using My Starkey’s Health section—count steps, monitor social activity, set fitness goals, and much more.)
Reduce the risk of falls by treating your hearing loss
What better time than this Fall Prevention Awareness Day to remove hearing loss as a risk factor for falls? Schedule a hearing exam with a licensed hearing care professional (find one here) and treat any hearing loss you may have.
Or, if you already have hearing aids and are concerned about falls, consider upgrading to our newest hearing technology. It’s worth noting, too, that Starkey hearing aids can actually detect if you fall and have the My Starkey app notify the contacts of your choice, immediately.
Either way, a hearing care professional is your best resource for exploring your hearing health solutions and finding the right one for you.
Here’s to a future of better hearing and living—with the help of hearing aids.