When we are young our bodies and bones can withstand falls, bumps, and scrapes with little recourse. However, as we age an unexpected fall can mean a significant health setback. Falls can mean broken bones and slower recovery time, often leading to further health complications down the road. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than one in four people in the United States age 65 or older falls every year. These falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among older adults leading to a dangerous cycle. Even if a fall is not fatal it can set you on a path of less movement, making you weaker and more prone to further injury as we age.
Monitoring Your Risk of Falling
A fall risk assessment helps find out how likely it is that you will fall. It is mostly done for adults 65 years or older. It is important to do what we can to lower your risk of falls as we age. Some of these factors include:
- limitations in mobility
- impaired walking patterns (gait)
- impaired balance.
- visual impairment
- hearing impairments
Here’s a simple test of your risk: Stand on one leg. In a small study of women in their 70s, the chance of a hip fracture dropped by 5 percent for every second they could stand on one leg with their eyes open.
Hearing and Balance: what is the connection?
Many people are surprised to discover that monitoring your hearing health can be a key element in the prevention of falls and accidents as we age. There are many factors which contribute to better balance by treating hearing loss. For one thing, in the ear, balance and hearing are directly connected, sharing a common nerve pathway to the brain.
“Most of us in the field believe that people with poor balance benefit a lot from auditory cues,” says Timothy Hullar, MD, a professor of otolaryngology at Oregon Health and Science University, however your hearing and balance may have a stronger connection in their function.
An Increased Risk of Falls Due to Hearing loss
Even mild hearing loss can affect fall risk. In fact, even a 25-decibel hearing loss—equivalent to going from normal to mild hearing loss—triples your chance of falling, a recent study of those aged 40 to 69 found.
Meanwhile a separate study based out of the University of Michigan, examined data on nearly 115,000 seniors newly diagnosed with hearing loss and determined that 13 percent had an injury in a fall within three years of diagnosis in comparison to 7.5 percent of contemporaries with normal hearing.
Why Hearing Loss Increases the Risk of Falling
It is not one but several factors which can increase the risk of falls as hearing loss develops:
Hearing loss can exhaust your brain reserves: Hearing starts in the ears but completes the process in the brain. When hearing loss occurs due to advanced age it often interrupts the delivery of sound from the ears to the brain. This means you must listen harder to follow the conversation. When you are concentrating harder to hear, it often means that you may have less mental resources devoted to staying balanced. “Gait and balance are things most people take for granted, but they are actually very cognitively demanding,” explains otologist Frank Lin, MD, PhD, from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Aging affects both hearing and balance: The risk of hearing loss and falls increases as we age as vestibular function in the brain declines along with hearing ability.
Sounds help us to stay balanced: the auditory cues around us also give us context for our environment. When our hearing is amplified, it is more likely that we can be aware of the world around us.
Preventing Falls by Treating Hearing Loss
While age related hearing loss is irreversible it is treatable. Treatment via hearing aids not only improves our ability to hear but to stay more alert of our environment and help to keep us active. To find out if hearing aids can help you stay healthier and more balanced, don’t wait for a damaging fall—contact us today to schedule a hearing exam and find out what we can do for you!