Are hearing aids actually worth the money? The cost is commonly a concern for people who have hearing loss. Still, when you invest in a house you don’t see the price and say, “well, being homeless is less expensive”! Price tag isn’t the only value consideration when it comes to getting hearing aids.
When shopping for a big-ticket item such as this you really need to ask yourself, “what do I get out of wearing hearing aids, and what’s the cost of not using them?” As it turns out, you pay a financial price for deciding not to purchase hearing aids. Your decisions should also factor in these costs. Recognize why you will save money in the long run if you decide to buy hearing aids.
You Will Find Yourself Spending More For Deciding on Inexpensive Hearing Aids
While shopping the hearing aids market, you will probably encounter cheaper devices that seem to be less costly. You could even buy a hearing aid off of the internet that cost less than a dinner.
You get what you pay for in quality when you buy cheap hearing devices. When you purchase these devices, you’re in reality buying an amplification device similar to earbuds, not a real hearing aid. All of the sounds around, including noises you don’t want to hear, are cranked up.
A high quality hearing aid is custom programable which isn’t a feature that cheaper devices provide. If your hearing aids can be programmed to target your specific hearing needs, you will have a much higher quality experience.
Store bought hearing devices use cheap batteries also. Spending large amounts of extra cash on batteries will be expensive. If you use the amplification device regularly, you may possibly wind up changing the battery up to a couple of times per day. The battery is likely to die when you need it most, also, so prepare to carry lots of spares around with you wherever you go. If you’re constantly purchasing dead batteries, are you actually saving money in the long run?
Better electronics allow the higher quality hearing aids to have a lot longer battery life. Many designs don’t even need replacement batteries at all because they’re rechargeable.
Issues With Your Career
It’s possible that you will earn less if you decide not to wear hearing aids or to wear cheap ones. Research conducted in 2013 and published in The Hearing Journal states that individuals with hearing loss don’t earn as much money – up to 25 percent less, and often have a hard time keeping a job at all..
Why? Communication is essential in every field and among the many factors involved, that one is prevalent. If you’re going to give good results, you need to be able to hear what your manager is saying. And in order to help consumers or clients, you must poses good listening skills. If you need to spend the whole conversation trying to figure out what words people are saying, you’re probably missing the whole content. To put it simply, if you cannot participate in discussions, it’s really difficult to excel at work.
The ordeal of trying to hear on the job will take it’s toll on you physically, as well. Even if you are able 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 needed to make out as much as possible, will make you exhausted and stressed out. Some impacts of stress:
- Your relationships
- Your quality of life
- The quality of your sleep
- Immune health
All of these have the chance of impacting your work performance and decreasing your income as a result.
Needing to go to the ER more frequently
hearing loss comes with safety concerns. If you don’t have quality hearing aids, it will be hazardous for you to go across the street or drive a vehicle. How can you avoid something if you’re not able to hear it? What about public warning systems like a twister alert or smoke alarm?
For quite a few jobs, hearing is a must for workplace safety like job-sites or production factories. That means that not wearing hearing aids isn’t just a safety hazard but also something which can minimize your career possibilities.
Financial security is a factor here, also. Did you overpay the waitress for dinner because you couldn’t hear her? Do you really need all those new tv functions that you failed to hear the salesperson discussing with you? Perhaps the lower priced style would be all you would require, but it is hard to know if you can’t hear the person talk about the difference.
The Health of Your Brain
One of the most important issues that come with hearing loss is the greater risk of dementia. The New England Journal of Medicine reports that Alzheimer’s disease costs people more than 56,000 dollars every year. Dementia accounts for 11 billion dollars in Medicare expense annually.
The risk of getting dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is a risk factor associated with hearing loss. It is calculated that a person who has serious, untreated hearing loss increases their risk of brain impairment by five fold. A modest hearing loss has three times the possibility of ending up with dementia, and even a minor hearing issue doubles your chances. Hearing aids return the danger to normal.
There is no doubt that a hearing aid will cost you a bit. If you analyze all the worries that come with going without one or buying a cheaper device, it’s unquestionably a sound financial decision. Make an appointment with your hearing care professional today.