Hearing is a problem for Boomers

I use a hearing aid, and I have done so for about three years. My hearing loss, took a long time and it was gradual, so I did not notice that I needed the aid. When I looked at the stats I was surprised. Here is some background information on this problem.

About 31.5 million Americans—one in 10—experience impaired hearing. Hearing loss affects all ages, but specifically, there are more baby boomers aged 45-64 with hearing loss (10 million) than there are people over the age of 65 with hearing loss (9 million). As baby boomers reach mid-age, a time when hearing loss frequently becomes more noticeable, they face concerns about what to do about their hearing loss. Boomers may have more hearing problems at an earlier age than previous generations.

Boomers had a noisy lifestyle, many had prolonged exposure to rock concerts, loud stereos, city traffic, power tools, and lawn mowers and this may take its toll on our ears. My problem was a result of shooting guns when I was younger, according to the Audiologists I saw, she also said that listening to loud stereos and going to concerts did not help.

Hearing care professionals confirm that they are seeing more younger clients seeking help with hearing loss. The National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders reports that 20 million Americans are exposed to dangerously noisy environments. Of the 31.5 million Americans with hearing loss, 10 million of these impairments are partially attributable to damage from exposure to loud sounds. Most hearing loss

How does your hearing work?

As sound passes through each ear, it sets off a chain reaction. The outer ear:

1.   Collects pressure (sound) waves and funnels them through to the ear canal. These vibrations strike the eardrum. The eardrum vibrates the delicate bones of the middle ear

2.   That conduct the vibrations into fluid in the inner ear

3.   The vibrations stimulate tiny nerve endings (hair cells) that transform vibrations into electro-chemical impulses. The impulses travel to the brain

4.   Where they are understood as sounds, such as speech, music, or noise.

What are the signs of hearing loss?

While a history of hearing loss in your family or exposure to high noise levels may cause hearing loss, the easiest way to identify hear­ing loss is to notice how your hearing affects your daily life. You are probably the best judge of whether your hearing has declined. You should have your hearing checked if you have experienced more than a couple of these signs of hearing loss.

·       Tired or stressed from trying to hear

·       Believe that everybody mumbles

·       Find it easier to understand others when you are looking directly at their faces

·       Frequently ask others to repeat themselves

·       Increase television or radio volume to a point that others complain

·       Have difficulty understanding speech in noisy places like cars, restaurants and theaters.

·       Fail to understand doctor’s instructions about medications

·       Make inappropriate responses because you didn’t understand the question

·       Miss essential sounds like doorbells, alarm clocks, smoke alarms

·       Have trouble hearing on the telephone

·       Turn one ear towards a speaker to hear better

I know I used excuses such as “people aren’t speaking as clearly as they used to, or  I can hear just fine, if only you would speak louder”. Excuses don’t cut it, having a hearing loss is detrimental to your health and to your cognitive ability. 

My audiologist told me at one point, that I was compensating for my hearing loss, with my brain filling in the words, I was not hearing. She explained to me, that over time, this ability to fill in the blanks would go away and I would never get it back. I would lose cognitive function. I don’t know if that was true, but about a year later I did get my hearing aids, and I immediately noticed an improvement in my social interactions. 

Adapting To Change By Meditation

Adapting to any kind of change in your life can be very stressful. The one thing I have learned when it comes to any kind of change is to keep it on a positive level. To do that I stay calm by meditating and keep it all in perspective. I was talking to a friend how I was very apprehensive about a change I would soon have to make in my life.She told me that almost over twenty years ago she had bought a brand new car and it was parked in an alley next to her house. 

She walked out of the house just in time to see and old vw bus scrape the front fender of her car. As she continued to tell me what happened she let me know she was trying to stay calm and knew she had to meditate and get focused on the situation. She went on to tell me that the driver got out of his car,threw his hat on the ground,then hung his head,holding it in his hands. She knew that he obviously didn't have the money to pay for the damage to her car and he almost started to cry.

My friend still meditating to keep things in perspective walked up to the man and you could tell he was very nervous and expected her to say something like What an idiot,Are you blind,or just something so mean that he would just feel terrible.As she walked up to the man she simply said don't worry about the scrape and to have a nice day.He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He began to cry tears of happiness and hugged my friend. He then ran to his wife who was in the car wondering what they were going to do and he hugged his wife and introduced her to my friend. 

As they were talking my friend told them how she used meditation to keep as calm as possible because she had a temper in the past that caused her a lot of problems. The man and his wife and my friend became the best of friends. Here it is 20 years later and even though the man has now passed away and his wife is in a home for the elderly my friend still visits the woman every week and still talk about the day they had met. 

Using meditation will certainly help you think about the situation your in and to not act on impulse,but to handle whatever situation it is you are in you will act responsibly.After my friend and I talked I thought how I could adapt to the change I would have to make by positive thinking and could make a bad situation into something that will have a very special meaning in my life.After our talk I went home and started thinking about using meditation to relax myself.

Do you use your community center?

A 2015 report on BC’s home support system from the Integrated Care Advocacy Group and the BC Health Coalition highlighted the loss of socialization in community health workers’ roles in BC’s home support system. The report, Living Up to the Promise: Addressing the High Cost of Underfundingand Fragmentation in BC’s Home Support System  (pdf file) was informed by focus group interviews and a wide literature search

A registered nurse interviewed for the report said, “Social isolation is thought to be a big reason that older, community living people…come into emergency. They come in simply because they are lonely. Since there is no other obvious diagnosis, the chart will often say: ‘Failure to Thrive.’”

One way to overcome isolation and become socially active is to join a local community or seniors center. There are benefits of participation in senior’s centres:

·       Social (making new friends, belonging to a group, and maintaining friendships at the center)

·       Psychological support (bereavement, relaxation, support with problems, and improving mental health)

·       Physical health (improving physical health, staying physically active, and eating healthy meals)

·       Activities (learning new ideas/skills, having fun, someplace to go and keeping busy)

·       Spirituality (helping with spiritual beliefs

Many successful community centers offer a wide rang range of programs. Successful centers address the demographic diversity of their participants, provide scheduling that meets the needs of the participants as well as providing the socialization aspect, while being flexible to the changing needs of the population.

These centers offer wellness programs involving fitness, nutritional supports, and health promotion. They offer activities that: enhance creativity, whether it is painting, writing, quilting, gardening, etc.; stimulate intellectual development through lectures, book clubs, concerts, and travel; answer the need for sense of purpose by providing broad opportunities for volunteering; and offer a variety of purely popular recreational programs such as bingo, bridge, mah-jong, etc. With advancing disability, they may also offer services to shut in isolated members.

Senior centres, neighbourhood houses, and community centres have a significant role to play in holistic health promotion. They offer a wide-ranging diversity of programming and services that enable seniors to continue to live independently in the community and “age in place.” Remember to stay healthy community is important. 

Men's mental health influenced by blood pressure, heart rate in adolescence

New research out of Sweden shows a link between blood pressure and an increased risk for psychiatric disorders. The following was written by by Hannah Nichols and published in October 2016. The full article is here

New research - involving more than 1 million men in Sweden - finds that differences in heart rate and blood pressure in late adolescence may be associated with an increased lifetime risk for psychiatric disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders.
Men who have high blood pressure and high heart rate in their teens are more likely to develop OCD, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders, say researchers.

Previous smaller studies have reported elevated resting heart rate in people with major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and psychotic disorders. Alterations in blood pressure have also been observed in people with schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression.

However, results of these studies have been inconsistent, with some studies reporting higher or lower blood pressure levels, and they have been skewed, in part, by side effects of medications.

The researchers aimed in this new large-scale cohort study to investigate whether differences in resting heart rate and blood pressure are associated with psychiatric disorders during the lifetimes of men in Sweden.

Researchers from Sweden and Finland conducted a study based on data of 1,794,361 Swedish men whose resting heart rate and blood pressure were measured at military conscription at an average age of 18 years between 1969-2010.

High heart rate linked to OCD, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders. Antti Latvala, Ph.D., of the University of Helsinki in Finland, and co-authors included several potential factors that may influence the outcome of the results, including physical, cognitive, and socioeconomic factors. They included height, weight, and body mass index (BMI), due to their potential association with both cardiovascular functioning and the risk for mental disorders.

The data were adjusted for general cognitive ability (IQ), because, according to the study authors, IQ is associated with psychiatric morbidity, although its association with resting heart beat and blood pressure is unknown.

Research results - published online in JAMA Psychiatry - show that male teenagers who had a resting heart rate above 82 beats per minute had a 69 percent increased risk of developing obsessive-compulsive behavior (OCD), compared with male teenagers with a resting heart rate below 62 beats per minute.

Similarly, compared with males in the lower heart rate category, men in the higher heart rate category had a 21 percent increased risk for schizophrenia and an 18 percent greater risk for anxiety. In contrast, teenage males with a lower resting heartbeat were linked to substance use disorders and violent convictions, particularly after adjusting for physical fitness.

The study authors reported similar associations for OCD, schizophrenia, anxiety, substance use disorders, and violence with higher and lower blood pressure readings.

"In this large-scale longitudinal cohort study, we found men with higher resting heart rate and higher blood pressure in late adolescence to be more likely to have received a diagnosis of OCD, schizophrenia, or anxiety disorder later in life," say the authors.

The strongest associations were seen with OCD, with men in the higher resting heart rate category 70-80 percent more likely to be at risk than men in the lower category. Correspondingly, men in the highest blood pressure category had a 30-40 percent greater risk for OCD than men in the lowest blood pressure category.