Are hearing aids actually worth the expense? The cost is commonly a worry for people who have hearing loss. You wouldn’t choose homelessness above investing in a new house. The actual value of hearing aids is about much more than the price tag.
When shopping for a big-ticket item like this you really should ask yourself, “what do I get out of wearing hearing aids, and what’s the cost of not having them?” If you choose not to buy hearing aids, there will be a monetary cost, as it turns out. Your decisions should also factor in these expenses. Recognize why you will save money over time if you decide to purchase hearing aids.
If You Decide to Purchase Less Expensive Hearing Aids, You Will Wind up Spending More
You will likely find, while shopping for hearing aids, that you can find cheaper hearing aids that will seem to save you money. You could even purchase a hearing aid off of the internet costing less than a dinner.
When it comes to cheaper hearing aids, you get what you pay for. These devices are not real hearing aids, they’re actually amplification devices like earpods. All of the sounds around you, including noises you don’t want to hear, are amplified.
A high quality hearing aid is custom programable which isn’t a feature that cheaper devices offer. If your hearing aids can be programmed to manage your specific hearing needs, you will have a much higher quality experience.
Over the counter hearing devices also use cheap batteries. Spending large amounts of extra money on batteries can be expensive. If you wear the amplification device regularly, you may possibly wind up changing the battery up to a couple of times each day. You’ll need to bring extra batteries around because they will usually die when you need them most. Do you really save cash if you need to replace dead batteries all of the time?
Better electronics allow the higher quality hearing aids to have a lot longer battery life. Many models don’t even need replacement batteries at all because they’re rechargeable.
Issues With Your Career
You could end up earning less if you decide not to use hearing aids or to wear cheap ones. Research conducted in 2013 and published in The Hearing Journal says that less money is made by adults who have hearing loss – as much as 25 percent less, and are more likely to be jobless.
Why? There are a lot of factors involved, but communication is crucial in pretty much every industry and that’s the major factor. You need to be able to hear what your boss says so that you can deliver good results. You should be able to listen to clients so that you can help them. If you spend the whole discussion attempting to figure out what words people are saying, you’re most likely missing the whole content. The bottom line is that it’s almost impossible to excel if you can’t take part in conversation.
The ordeal of trying to hear on the job will take it’s toll on you physically, also. Even if you manage to get through a day with sub-par hearing, the stress that happens if you worry about whether you heard something correctly and the energy necessary to make out as much as you can, will make you fatigued and stressed out. Some affects of stress:
- Your relationships
- Your ability to sleep
- Your immune system
- Your quality of life
All of these have the possibility of affecting your work performance and decreasing your income as a consequence.
More Trips to The Emergency Room
hearing loss comes with safety concerns. Without appropriate hearing aids, it will be dangerous for you to go across the street or drive a vehicle. How can you stay clear of something if you can’t hear it? How about emergency warning systems like a tornado alert or smoke alarm?
For jobs like a manufacturing facility or a construction site, you need to be capable of hearing so that you and your coworkers to be safe. So your safety, as well as your career options, will be restricted if you don’t use the quality hearing aids you need.
Financial security is also a factor here. Did you overpay the waitress for dinner because you had a difficult time hearing her? What did the sales representative say regarding the features of the Television you’re checking out and do you require them? Perhaps the lower priced model would be all you would need, but it is difficult to know if you’re unable to hear the clerk discuss the difference.
Brain Health
The increased risk of dementia is one of the most important problems with hearing loss. The New England Journal of Medicine reports that each year people spend as much as 56,000 dollars treating Alzheimers disease.11 billion dollars annually is spent in medicare costs to treat dementia.
The chance of getting dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is a risk factor linked to hearing loss. Somebody who has ignored their hearing loss for a long time raises their chance of brain impairment by five fold. A modest hearing loss has three times the chance of getting dementia, and even a minor hearing problem doubles your chances. Hearing aids mitigate these dangers.
Obviously, there is a price to purchasing hearing aids. If you examine the costs you will encounter by deciding not to purchase hearing aids or purchasing cheaper ones, the choice is clear. Schedule an appointment with your hearing care professional today.