Untreated hearing loss is a slow ongoing stroke.
Johns Hopkins researchers have just found patients with even minimal hearing loss lose a cubic centimeter of brain tissue (about the size of a dice) every year.[1] Like a stroke, the result over time is dementia, increased likelihood of falling, accelerated cognitive decline, personality changes, and extreme depression. The brain dies for lack of stimulation.
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“Audiologists are no longer treating the ear,” says Highland Park's Dr. Ronna Fisher, “we’re treating the brain. We need to maximize neuroplastic changes and brain processing. If we fail Illinois faces a skyrocketing rise of dementia, memory loss, falls, and helplessness. Hearing professionals need more training and more education on brain function than ever.”
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“Yet”,” she says, thanks to Costco, anyone with a mere high school diploma will soon be treating hearing and balance patients.”
Costco and other large retailers have just engineered that change in Washington State. After intense lobbying this month Governor Jay Inslee signed a new law allowing a high school graduate to dispense hearing instruments. Other states could follow suit as mammoth retailers seek to further expand their rapidly growing hearing aid divisions. Dr. Fisher says, “They need cheap labor so they can sell discounted hearing aids at warehouse prices. To accomplish that they have to dumb down the requirements to treat hearing patients. And they have the money to do it.”
Dr. Fisher continues, “In just a few months Costco’s money bought a new law that jeopardizes patient care. Meanwhile, audiologists have been lobbying for ten years to give our patients a $2,000 tax credit for their hearing aids...and we haven’t even gotten to first base.” Dr .Fisher is the founder of Hearing Health Centers in Chicago, Oak Brook, Naperville, and Highland Park.
Doctors of audiology have advanced degrees requiring 4 years post college studying brain function. They claim current Illinois law, requiring hearing aid dispensers complete just two years of college, is already inadequate. Current research shows that hearing professionals will have to monitor patients for dementia and other aging symptoms. Most important, they’ll have to know how to subtly adjust hearing devices to provide as much brain stimulation as possible. Dr. Fisher says, “A trained doctor of audiology can adjust a hearing aid to modify the brain and even stimulate areas that no longer receive sounds. But a prerequisite is the education to diagnose then prescribe the optimal treatment for each individual patient. Every brain is different. This isn’t some Costco ‘one size fits all” experience.”
The stakes are so high because studies suggest hearing aids custom programmed to maximally stimulate the brain can largely prevent the memory loss, Alzheimer’s, falling, irritability, depression and other illnesses associated with aging. Johns Hopkins researchers found expertly fitted and programmed hearing instruments boost cognitive function 50 per cent in a single year. “Hearing loss isn’t just a symptom of ‘old age’; it’s a major cause of old age,” Dr. Fisher says.
“Hearing loss is nothing less than a stroke we can minimize...perhaps even reverse,” says Dr. Fisher. “The keys are first that baby boomers get a hearing exam, and second that they get treated by hearing professionals with the skills to literally preserve their remaining brain tissue.”
“Those skills,” she adds, “require far more than just a high school diploma. This is a nationwide battle for our patients. If we allow this movement to spread, aging baby boomers will decline...and our health care costs will be going up..”
The Hearing Health Center is located at 185 Skokie Valley Road, Crossroads Shopping Center, Highland Park, IL 60035. 847-681-7000. Visit our web site at www.hearinghealthcenter.com
