Are hearing aids actually worth the cost? People who have hearing loss are normally worried about the price tag. Still, when you invest in a house you don’t learn the price and say, “well, being homeless is less expensive”! The actual value of hearing aids is about much more than the price.
You really need to ask yourself what the cost of not buying hearing aids will be and what the actual value of using hearing aids is.” Come to find out, you pay a financial price for choosing not to buy hearing aids. Your decisions should also factor in these costs. Take into account a few good reasons why purchasing hearing aids will save you money long term.
You Will Find Yourself Spending More if You Decide on Inexpensive Hearing Aids
You will likely find, when you’re 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 that cost less than a dinner.
You get what you pay for in quality with over-the-counter hearing devices. These devices are not authentic hearing aids, they’re really amplification devices like earpods. They just amplify all of the sound around you, including noises you don’t want amplified.
Customized programming is the best feature of a high-quality hearing aid, that you won’t get if you use a cheap hearing device. If your hearing aids can be programmed to target your distinct hearing needs, you will have a much higher quality experience.
The batteries in over the counter hearing aids are also low quality. It becomes very expensive when you have to keep replacing dead batteries. If you wear the amplification device regularly, you may possibly end up switching the battery up to a couple of times per day. You’ll have to carry extra batteries around because they will normally fail when you need them most. Do you actually save money if you need to replace dead batteries every day?
More efficient electronics allow the higher quality hearing aids to have a much longer battery life. Some even come with rechargeable batteries, doing away with the need for repeated replacements.
Issues With Your Career
It’s possible that you will earn less if you choose not to use hearing aids or to wear cheap ones. A 2013 study published in The Hearing Journal reports that less money is made by people who have hearing loss – up to 25 percent less, and are more likely to be without a job.
And why? Communication is crucial in every job and among the many factors involved, that one is dominant. You need to be capable of hearing what your boss says so that you can deliver good results. You have to be capable of listening to clients so that you can assist them. You’ll probably end up missing the whole content of the discussion if you are always trying to hear what people are saying. Simply put, if you cannot participate in discussions, it’s very difficult to succeed at work.
There will also be a physical toll from struggling to here on the job. You will find yourself physically exhausted from the energy spent trying to understand what people are saying and worried about whether you heard them right. Here are some consequences of stress:
- Your ability to sleep
- Immune health
- Your quality of life
- Health of your relationships
All of these have the chance of impacting your work efficiency and bringing down your income as a result.
Having to go to the ER more frequently
There are safety problems that come with loss of hearing. It will be dangerous for you to drive a vehicle or cross the street if you don’t use quality hearing aids. How can you avoid something if you’re not able to hear it? And you risk missing a public warning alert system including a smoke alarm or severe storm warning alert.
For a good number of jobs, hearing is necessary for workplace safety like construction sites or production factories. So your safety, as well as your career options, will be limited if you don’t wear the quality hearing aids you require.
Financial safety 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 tv you’re looking at and do you really need them? Perhaps the lower priced model would be all you would require, but it is hard to know if you can’t hear the person discuss the difference.
The Health of Your Brain
One of the most crucial problems that come with hearing loss is the increased chance of dementia. The New England Journal of Medicine reports that each year people spend as much as 56,000 dollars dealing with Alzheimers disease.Dementia accounts for 11 billion dollars in Medicare costs annually.
Loss of hearing is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and a variety of other kinds of dementia. It is calculated that a person who has severe, untreated hearing loss increases their chance of brain impairment by five fold. The risk of getting dementia increases by three times with moderate hearing loss and doubles with even minor hearing loss. Hearing aids return the danger to a normal level.
Of course, there is a cost to purchasing hearing aids. If you look at the costs you will confront by choosing not to purchase hearing aids or getting cheaper ones, the choice is obvious. Consult a hearing care professional to find out more about hearing aids.