Depression and anxiety are common experiences for many individuals. These conditions can create challenges that feel overwhelming and insurmountable at times. One way to approach this is through Existential approaches to counselling. In Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, he writes how we can fill our lives with meaning by incorporating three main pillars: 1) the freedom to will – choosing your own path to follow; 2) the will to meaning – finding what is personally meaningful; and 3) the meaning to life – one’s personal meaning brought forward by the work or deed and their connection to others.
Community News
Aging Well Seniors’ Expo
“Friday, June 10th, 10 am – 3 pm at Cowichan Community Centre, FREE ADMISSION.
Volunteer Cowichan is hosting the 3rd Annual Aging Well Seniors’ Expo to connect, inform and empower older adults with a wide range of services, information and products to support them as they age. The expo will have health, financial, legal, medical and physical-care businesses, professionals, organizations, and more on-site. Table Talk presentations, door prizes and more! Sponsors H.W. Wallace Cremation & Burial Centre, BC CRN and Wellnessnews Choices for Health Living® invite older adults, elders, friends and family to attend this event. “
Senior Brain Health
It’s important for people of all ages to keep their brains healthy with regular workouts, but especially so for seniors. Here are five ways you can keep your mind sharp as you age: 1) Play a game. Try a sudoku, crossword, or jigsaw puzzle, or play a game of cards with friends. 2) Get moving. Regular exercise increases blood flow to your brain and increases neurons. 3) Listen to or play music. Science shows that music is a great brain booster. 4) Eat right. A diet rich in healthy fats is crucial for cognitive health. 5) Learn something new. Keep your mind engaged!
Focus on What You Want
When someone heads towards their goals, versus trying to move away or reduce something, the outcome is more positively directed. By looking to something rewarding, success has a better chance of taking place. It also helps to focus on what you want to bring into being, as opposed to dwelling on what you don’t want anymore. A positive attitude is very powerful. When you have a positive attitude, negative thoughts are much less likely to come to mind. Positive thinking can help to control stress and also improve health.
Keep Gambling in Check
Have you heard of Canada’s Low-Risk Gambling Guidelines? They recommend keeping it under 1% of gross household income, four days/month or less and only two types of gambling. Also, consider the following which can increase your risk of developing a gambling problem: 1) If you struggle with mental health and addictions issues or have experienced gambling problems in your family, 2) If you are drawn to fast-paced games that involve frequent betting like slot machines, in-game sports betting, or many online forms of gambling, and/or 3) you’re playing for escapism or to make money. Check out GamblingGuidelines.ca #LRGG.
New Community Partnership
We are excited to announce a community partnership with Volunteer Cowichan (VC) in Cowichan Valley. Together, we will help residents find and link to local health and wellness resources, support and services. For 44+ years, VC has been a leader in community promoting, mobilizing and celebrating volunteers. They have many programs that support older adults and youth. You can find more about VC in this newsletter, on their website and on the WellnessHub Vancouver Island. While you are on the Hub, don’t forget to enter this month’s contest for a chance to win 2 x 10 Flex Pass tickets to the Nanaimo NigthOwls Baseball Club games.
Zumba – Fitness & Fun at Any Age
Zumba is a fitness program that involves cardio and Latin-inspired dance. Did you know besides burning calories, Zumba also relieves depression that triggers stress and anxiety disorders? Zumba will build strong legs that make it easier to walk and help with mobility. An added benefit is that it helps keep your mind sharp figuring out the steps while you are having fun and moving to the music. Zumba is an exercise in disguise that allows for modification so that the moves and the pace can be suited for participants of all ages. Join us every Thursday at 9:30 AM to dance the stress away!
What are the risks of untreated hearing loss?
Hearing loss is quite common among a large portion of the population, but it isn’t rare for people with hearing loss to leave it untreated for long periods of time. What many don’t realize is that there are a concerning number of risks associated with untreated hearing loss.
It often takes 7 years on average before an individual seeks treatment which may be caused by frustration, believing it’s a sign of aging, difficulties finding a treatment plan, or simply their unawareness of the condition.
There is an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing towards the unintended risks of untreated hearing loss that can have significant consequences. Cognitive, psychological, and safety risks are often interlinked with many symptoms occurring at the same time that negatively affects a person’s quality of life.
Untreated hearing loss causing cognitive decline and mental fatigue
One risk of untreated hearing loss is a decline in cognitive health, as found in a study from John Hopkins University.
How does this happen?
The brain is responsible for identifying and transmitting the sounds we hear every day. When an individual has hearing loss, there is less sound traveling to the brain and therefore, the brain isn’t working as much as it typically would with normal hearing abilities.
If hearing loss is left untreated for a long period of time, the lack of stimulation causes the brain tissue to begin to deteriorate (also known as brain atrophy), the nerves can get rewired for different functions and it becomes harder for the brain to recognize sounds.
Think of it this way. If an individual’s hobby is running and they go for an hour-long run every day, then stop for months, their body begins to decline in muscle strength and stamina.
That is what can happen to the brain when hearing loss is left untreated. The lack of exercise can cause mental fatigue as the brain struggles to process sounds, as found in the John Hopkins University study.
The decline in emotional wellbeing and untreated hearing loss
Untreated hearing loss risks an individual’s cognitive abilities and brain health, but it also certainly can greatly impact their emotional well-being.
Many studies have shown that untreated hearing loss is linked to emotional and mental health conditions, often resulting in the following:
● Depression and fatigue
● Anxiety, tension, and stress
● Anger, frustration, and negativity
● Avoidance or isolation from social situations
● Social rejection and loneliness
● Lack of alertness and increased risk to personal safety
● Difficulty remembering things or learning new tasks
● Decreased job performance and progression
Often, individuals with hearing loss tend to withdraw from large group settings or loud sound environments because they struggle to hear and understand their peers, both personally and professionally.
This is a risk factor because increased withdrawal from social situations with friends or family can lead to depression and anxiety. It causes strains on relationships and can leave an individual with hearing loss feeling lonely and with low self-esteem.
Professionally, being involved in large work gatherings, meeting with clients, and interacting with customers while struggling with hearing can cause a lot of anxiety.
It can be stressful because of the importance of work discussions, the number of conversations occurring at once, and noisy sound environments, making it overwhelming and harder to hear.
Safety risks associated with untreated hearing loss
One of the most overlooked risks of untreated hearing loss is the lack of safety for an individual with difficulty hearing.
Individuals with hearing loss may miss warning signs of danger such as fire alarms, sirens, a door opening or shutting, glass breaking, or someone shouting at them. It puts those with untreated hearing loss at greater risk of injury.
In fact, hearing greatly contributes to a person’s balance because our ears pick up very subtle cues as we walk that help to keep us upright and balanced. For an individual with hearing loss, they can’t hear these essential signals which makes it much easier to have a dangerous fall.
Not to mention, their brain has to work much harder just to process sounds, causing increased multitasking in the subconscious that can interfere with the mental processing needed to walk safely.
The risk of falling is three times more likely and injuries are 50 percent more likely for individuals with hearing loss, according to John Hopkins Medicine studies.
Why you should treat your hearing loss
There is only one way to treat hearing loss and that is to use hearing aids. The pros massively outweigh the cons and with new technology that continues to advance, you’ll find that hearing aids aren’t what they used to be.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), invisible hearing aid models, rechargeable batteries, Bluetooth streaming, and audio control on a smartphone app is just the tip of the iceberg.
The risk of untreated hearing loss has the potential to greatly diminish an individual’s quality of life, but once treated, they can start to enjoy their day-to-day.
They can fully get immersed in conversations again, feel safer when at home by themselves, hear the sound of birds chirping or frogs croaking when going for a nature walk, and experience a world full of all the sounds they couldn’t hear before
Do you have an untreated hearing loss?
If you are living with an untreated hearing loss or suspect you have hearing loss, the passionate, dedicated, and experienced hearing professionals at NexGen Hearing are here to help you experience an improved quality of life and support you on your journey to better hearing.
NexGen Hearing provides free hearing tests, hearing aid consultations and sales, and much more at over 45 clinics in the BC Interior, Lower Mainland, and Vancouver Island.
To find a clinic near you and book an appointment, click here or call 1-877-606-6671.
How Artificial Intelligence Helps With Hearing Loss
One of the reasons that makes it difficult to address hearing loss is that the way in which each individual experiences hearing loss can be a bit different, which is why a visit to a trained hearing professional is important. Different environments with varying amounts of noise adds an additional layer of complexity to the problem.
A hearing solution that works well for you for having a conversation at home may not work well in a noisy restaurant. If you have any experience with hearing loss, you may understand that the solution isn’t as simple as just making everything louder.
Hearing loss research has seen significant advancements from using artificial intelligence (AI). AI is a system that uses data to recognize patterns, which can then be applied to solve problems. With large amounts of data, AI is able to navigate through complex problems involving many variables.
We will take you through how AI has been used for hearing loss so far and the potential for AI to help with hearing loss in the future.
Current uses of AI in hearing loss
You may have already encountered the use of AI already without knowing it. A common use of AI is to recognize speech. This technology has been applied to provide automated closed captioning for video services to help those with hearing loss.
Some audiologists have started to also use AI to help fit hearing aids. In these cases, the audiologist would play different sounds for you, and software with AI functions would provide suggestions to tune the hearing aid.
To provide a more direct impact on hearing loss, AI is used in increasingly sophisticated hearing aids. Early uses of AI were used to create pre-trained models for different environments. The hearing aid would then have different modes with different frequencies preset for environments such as being at home, in restaurants, or in front of the television.
Newer hearing aids with AI are able to listen to the environment and automatically make adjustments as necessary. These hearing aids can actively lower background noise while also working to increase the volume of voices, making it easier to hear speech.
Future uses of AI in hearing loss
AI is being used to help achieve the aim of getting as close as possible to replicating how the brain hears sounds without hearing loss. Hearing aids with AI technology will automatically adjust to best match each individual’s hearing needs.
AI is able to create a balanced, personalized output by scanning the sounds in an environment, identifying the elements of different sounds, and understanding how to process each element. By listening to the voices that you hear often, the AI could emphasize voices from certain individuals while reducing others.
More advanced use of AI may be able to tackle some of the trickiest situations for people with hearing loss, such as focusing on conversations between multiple people in a noisy environment. Further in the future, to prioritize the voice of interest, which may constantly shift among speakers, the AI could determine which voice to focus on by tracking the neural activity of the brain.
Another possibility to focus on a particular speaker in the future would be to use augmented reality (AR) glasses, which is a pair of glasses that provides information to the wearer. Eye-tracking technology would allow the AI to know in which direction to focus while the glasses could provide automated captions to supplement the speech in case the wearer still has trouble making out the speech.
While the future is full of bright possibilities when applying AI to help with hearing loss, a lot of work is still required to get there. Luckily, we have seen considerable progress. Advanced hearing aids are already able to suppress unwanted noise to allow you to focus on voices. All it takes is a visit to a trained practitioner, such as the professionals at NexGen Hearing, to get a hearing aid expertly adjusted to your individual hearing needs.
Sources:
https://www.hearsoundly.com/guides/best-ai-hearing-aids
https://sfaudiology.com/the-future-of-hearing-devices-deep-neural-networks-artificial-intelligence/
Normal Forgetfulness or Dementia?
As we age, it’s normal to experience more frequent instances of memory loss. Some common symptoms of normal memory loss include transience, when the brain forgets some memories over time, and absentmindedness, where you may forget something because you weren’t focused on it. Other factors can also contribute to normal memory loss, such as depression and other mental health issues. Memory loss that involves the following can be cause for concern and should be addressed by a doctor: 1) Forgetting important information, like names. 2) Being extremely disoriented in unfamiliar environments. 3) Major personality changes like aggressiveness or impulsivity.
Great Socks for Travel
Many of us have compression socks for traveling. On the day of travel, put them on when you get up; that is when your legs are less swollen. This allows your body to adapt to the socks. Make sure to leave them on for a few hours after you land to again allow your body to adapt. Wearing the socks for the extra time can reduce any swelling of the legs much more effectively than if they are taken straight off. Travel socks do not work unless you wear them. If the ones you have are not comfortable, look for a different kind.
