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In today's New York Times (Nov. 2), reporter Katie Hafner writes a fascinating article on the ways nursing homes and facilities for the elderly are rethinking the risk of falls in their patients and residents.
The article includes several very interesting photos/graphics showing how the elderly with impaired vision see, say, a flight of carpeted stairs, and then another showing how the addition of a simple contrasting stripe on the step can make the stair far more visible. There’s also a photo of a black toilet seat. It seems weird and even possibly unsanitary, but it helps older people know exactly where to sit.
Contrasting toilet seats can help prevent falls in the elderly. So can bold markings on carpeted staircases. Good!
But why do we focus solely on visual aids and ignore the well-documented benefit of hearing aids? Even mild hearing loss results in a greatly increased risk of falls in the elderly, and the numbers go up with age.
Yet here is another article about falls in the elderly with not a single reference to hearing loss.
I would say this is shocking, but I’m ever more resigned to the fact that hearing loss is ignored almost universally, even though it affects 20 percent of Americans of all ages and more than two-thirds of Americans age 75 and older.
And it has a marked effect on physical and mental health, verified in one study after another.
The physical consequences can be deadly. Falls are the leading cause of death in the elderly.
A 2012 study by the National Institute on Aging (Luigi Ferrucci) and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Frank Lin) found a three-fold greater risk of falls in those over 65 who had even mild hearing loss.
A mild hearing loss is one characterized by a 25-decibel loss. For each addition decibel lost, the risk increases the chances of falling 1.4 fold.
Hearing and balance are both regulated by the vestibular system, but Dr. Lin believes that a more pertinent explanation is that people who can’t hear well might have trouble being aware of their overall environment, making tripping and falls more likely.
Another explanation is that in people with even mild hearing loss, the brain has to work harder to process sound, reducing the cognitive resources available for processing things like gait and balance.
Eighty percent of 80-year-olds have hearing loss serious enough to warrant hearing aids. Exactly 15 percent of them have hearing aids. The numbers of us with hearing loss just go up as we age into the late 80s and 90s. But the incidence of hearing aid use doesn't change much.
It’s essential that we begin to pay attention to the role of untreated hearing loss in the physical and mental health of the elderly. Black toilet seats are good, but hearing aids are even better
This article also appears in a slightly different form on my personal blog, Hear Better With Hearing Loss.
