How Hearing Loss Causes Isolation

Having an awareness of the world around us is important. Our awareness of the world helps us stay informed about what is going on in our daily life and in our communication with others. These small parts make up the whole of our existence and our connection to others. Hearing is an essential part of this connection and is necessary to maintain engagement with life and those around us. However, many people neglect their hearing and don’t realize how important it is until it is too late. Hearing loss is something you may live with for a long time, without realizing, that is, until it is already gone.

Social impacts of hearing loss

Poor hearing drastically limits your opportunities to understand what others are saying. Unfortunately, many people with impaired hearing neglect the problem and on average will wait seven years before seeking help from an audiologist. Some people even wait longer or until they’ve exhausted all other options; by then, it is too late. With hearing loss, any degree of loss will impact your life. Hearing loss can lead to a lower quality of life and ultimately lead to depression.

How hearing works:

Our sense of hearing is one we do not often think about. Your ears function constantly through the day at varying levels, so it is easy to forget about this essential sense. It processes background chatter or traffic for general awareness and focuses on critical events like alarming and warning sounds. But it’s most attuned to the function of giving and receiving speech in various intonations when communicating with others. When your hearing is impaired, you no longer process speech with optimal clarity. You start losing a critical bit of information and missing clues to what’s being conveyed in conversations, and your capacity to discern spoken meaning is diminished. 

To facilitate your hearing, your ear is made up of these main parts:

Outer Ear. This is the visible exterior pinna/auricle and the outer canal. The pinna’s cartilage and skin forms a funnel to better collect sounds and determine their sources while channeling the sound waves into the middle ear’s cavities.

Middle Ear. The eardrums are thin tympanic membranes, which vibrate with passing sound waves and pass them to the middle ear. Within its cavities are the three tiny bone formations: the malleus, incus and stapes. These convey the waves further into fluid chambers. Air pressure then equalizes with the outside via Eustachian tubes connecting the cavities to the rear of the throat and nose.

Inner Ear. The inner ear’s cochlea has thousands of sensory hair cells, which transmit neural impulses via auditory nerves to the brain. The cells of this hearing organ are sensitized to various sound pitches and frequencies, to enable assimilation and processing of the various levels. The semicircular canal of the balancing organ is also found here.

As you can see, hearing is an important part of your life and you can prevent hearing loss by being aware of noise levels in your environment. All it takes is an ounce of prevention and you can reduce the impact of noise levels on your hearing. If you’re experiencing symptoms of hearing loss, don’t delay treatment. Talk to your audiologist immediately.