My Hearing is Not Bad Enough Yet

My Hearing is Not Bad Enough Yet

Your Opportunity is Now: It’s as Simple as PENN and PAPER

By: Dr. Lori A Halvorson, Audiologist Dedicated to preserving the future of your hearing and brain

How often do you go to the dentist? Would you wait, thinking, my tooth decay is not bad enough yet, I think I will wait until I need a root canal before going for a check-up. How often do you get your hearing checked? Would you wait, thinking, my hearing is not bad enough yet, I think I will wait until more of my hearing neurons die before getting a check-up.

Scientific studies show a link between oral health and hearing loss. Bacteria that originate in the mouth can narrow arteries and blood vessels located in the ears, resulting in damage to hearing. Just as you go to the dentist for both preventative care and treatment for decay, I encourage you to the audiologist for a preventative hearing check and treatment for hearing decay. You should go to the audiologist as often as you have a preventative dental exam. Why?

A hearing problem can become a brain problem which can become a life problem.

You need your ear, your hearing highway (the anatomy that sends sound from the ear canal to the brain) and your brain to understand speech. If your brain doesn’t receive all the sounds it needs to process speech, because your hearing highway is damaged, the brain cannot process the information accurately, resulting in difficulty understand what people are saying. The Journal of Alzheimer’s Association published a scientific study in July 2021, by Stevenson, Clifton, Kuzma and Littlejohns. In their study of over 82,000 people, they found:

You are at a 61% greater risk for dementia if you struggle with poor speech understanding in noise, 91% greater risk for dementia if you struggle with severe difficulty, compared to people with no difficulty understanding speech in noise.

Science shows a direct link between understanding speech in noise and dementia. Guess what? Some people have normal hearing on the beep-beep hearing test, but have hearing loss in noise, difficulty understand the clarity of words in noisy places. A single beep-beep test in a booth does not provide a comprehensive assessment and diagnosis of both the hearing and speech processing system and the brain.

Failing to have an annual preventative hearing exam, similar to a dental exam, reduces your opportunity to preserve good hearing, treat hearing decay and reduce your risk for dementia. According to research by Dr. Frank Lin at Johns Hopkins, early intervention yields the best results. His research showed, even a mild hearing loss can double the risk for dementia, a moderate loss triple the risk and a severe loss put you at 5 times more risk. Your opportunity is now.

If you have not had a recent hearing evaluation, a speech in noise evaluation and a cognitive screening you are missing a once in a life-time opportunity to preserve your future hearing and brain health and the opportunity to reduce your risk for dementia.

The alarming possible consequence of doing nothing can be devastating to your hearing, your brain, your life, your family and to your financial future.

Damage to your hearing highway results in potholes, missing sound signals to the brain, like playing a piano with missing keeps. Hearing sounds bad. Your brain works harder. Your life gets harder. Consequences of untreated hearing loss:

• increased listening effort
• increased mental load
• brain reorganizes- often hijacks resources from memory
• accelerated cognitive decline
• accelerated brain volume shrinkage

Untreated hearing problems become a brain problem which becomes a life problem.

For a better life, safer brain, make it easier to hear. Get your hearing tested and treated.

Hearing evaluations must be diagnostic and functional. Treatment must improve your brain’s ability to process and understand speech in dynamic environments: like restaurants, family gatherings, face masks, telephones, not just make sound louder, to reduce your risk for dementia. Optimal hearing treatment requires a combination of a hearing doctor plus a device. It is not just a device, like a cell phone or computer. The device alone will not preserve your future hearing and brain health. The professional care by your hearing doctor can.

Hearing is thinking.

If you have even a mild hearing loss, your brain has trouble thinking. Your ears pick up the sound of speech and noise, the sound travels through your hearing highway to your brain and your brain makes sense out of it. If your hearing highway is damaged, not all the sound reaches your brain. And the hearing problem becomes a brain problem. Your brain is put under stress working harder to fill in missing sounds, often slowing down, taking more time to guess at speech.

This is why your cognitive brain health requires a hearing doctor, professionally educated in hearing and cognitive auditory systems, to conduct a comprehensive diagnostic and functional evaluation to provide an accurate diagnosis of your auditory and speech processing systems. The treatments must match the level of function of your anatomy for hearing (loudness), speech processing (understanding words) and cognition (brain health). All should be monitored, verified and adjusted as your anatomy and functional hearing changes. This will ensure optimal opportunity to preserve your future hearing and brain health. The comprehensive approach we provide at Lake Forest Hearing Professionals includes:

• 4 part Comprehensive HSFC Evaluation to test:
  • Hearing system
  • Speech understanding and processing system
  • Functional hearing
  • Cognition screening
• Diagnosis
• Preservation Plan: PENN - Protect, Exercise, Nutrition, Nutraceutical
• Treatment Plan: PAPER – Prescribe, Aid, Program, Evaluate, Retrain the brain: reading & music

We approach hearing health diagnostically and functionally to determine an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan. This works to stabilize good hearing, possibly regain any weakened hearing, treat decaying hearing, retrain the brain to understand speech through a damaged system, similar to learning a foreign language, called the hearing loss language. Our treatment technologies and therapies compensate for the negative effects hearing loss puts on the brain.

My team is highly skilled on the latest testing, research, technology, brain training and nutraceuticals to protect the future of your hearing and brain. Your opportunity is now. Call us for your personalized PENN & PAPER Hearing Treatment Plan.

Dr. Lori Halvorson, Audiologist and the team at Lake Forest Hearing Professionals 847-295-1185 Northfield - Lake Forest – Chicago - Concierge Home Care -Road America Race Track

What is the health of your hearing highway?