Ear Care Day, pay attention to presbycusis

March 3, 2022 is the 23rd National "Love Your Ears Day". Let us pay attention to presbycusis.

Presbycusis refers to the physiological phenomenon of hearing loss caused by the slow, progressive aging of the human auditory organs along with other tissues and organs due to aging.

Causes of presbycusis

1. Genetic factors

2. Non-genetic factors: auditory nerve degeneration, cardiovascular diseases (hypertension, coronary heart disease, arteriosclerosis, hyperlipidemia), diabetes, liver and kidney dysfunction, vitamin deficiency, head trauma, vascular diseases, infection and ototoxic drugs, cerumen embolism, otitis media and otosclerosis, cervical spondylosis, sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome, smoking and alcohol abuse, etc.

Factors that accelerate hearing loss:

Environmental noise, metabolic disorders, diet and nutrition, living conditions.

Labor intensity, climate change, chronic diseases, mental stress.

Early signs of hearing loss

01 Often ask friends to repeat themselves when chatting

02 Tinnitus, frequent insomnia at night

03 Can't hear clearly in crowded environment

04 The birds are no longer singing

05 The TV volume is getting louder

06 The phone call was not smooth, and my son didn’t want to chat with me anymore

The dangers of presbycusis

01 You can’t hear the car horn, it’s dangerous!

02It’s dangerous if you can’t hear your baby crying!

03 You can’t hear the fire alarm, it’s dangerous!

04 I can't hear the knock on the door

05 I can’t hear the phone ringing

06 Loneliness

07 Anxiety

08 Not sociable

The dangers of presbycusis

1) Affect the quality of life;

2) Hearing loss, causing communication barriers;

3) Greatly reduce the initiative to participate in society and reduce social interactions;

4) Affect physical and mental health;

5) The ability to accept external information becomes weaker;

6) Poor regulatory beliefs, negative psychological feelings, and depression tendencies;

7) Gradual deterioration of mental state and emotional response, psychological trauma;

8) Increase the burden on families and society;

How to protect your hearing

Before hearing loss:

Avoid entering or leaving places with strong noise. If you must enter or leave such places, use noise-proof earplugs.

Avoid using headphones to listen to music for a long time, as this can easily cause permanent hearing loss.

After hearing loss:

When hearing loss is discovered, hearing aids should be worn as soon as possible to avoid continued deterioration of hearing and speech recognition abilities. If hearing aids are not worn in time, patients will not be able to continue to hear sounds, which may lead to deterioration of the brain's auditory perception, duller hearing, worse speech recognition ability, and increasingly unable to hear conversations clearly, and hearing will deteriorate over time.

Measures to delay hearing loss in the elderly

Reasonable combination of nutrition, eat more fruits and vegetables;

Eat less high-cholesterol, high-fat foods;

Stay away from noise;

Keep a happy mood;

Avoid overexertion;

Avoid tobacco and alcohol;

Regularly participate in cultural and sports activities that enhance physical fitness;

Actively prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases and have regular physical examinations;

Intervention measures for presbycusis

When hearing loss is found to be present and cannot be treated, hearing aids or other intervention methods should be selected as soon as possible to improve hearing and enable the elderly to better integrate into social communication.