South Huntsville Neighbors, June 2024

YOUR HEALTH
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Hearing Health Matters:
Linking Hearing Loss and the Brain
By Anita Giles MS,
CCC-A Audiologist,
Physicians Hearing Center
LinkedIn is a networking site for professionals to connect, collaborate,
share and learn. “The mission of LinkedIn is simple: connect
the world’s professionals to make them more productive and
successful”. Networking includes looking for new opportunities to
grow and learn, developing relationships with other professionals or
friends, and 昀椀 nding information, people, and/or education options.
Linking with all aspects of life requires similar networking capabilities
for us to be successful in life’s relationships. With hearing loss,
connection and communication networks are interrupted and we are
no longer linked in with life.
Our body is a complex network of many necessary and in 昀氀 uential
members uni 昀椀 ed to make us healthy, well, and who we are. The brain
is central to everything we do, think, and remember. It has billions of
nerve cells (neurons), trillions of 昀椀 bers and connections (nerve impulses)
that form a network linking it to all body parts (nervous system).
Nerve cells receive and send information, which is processed
to make us aware of what we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and plans
our movements. The brain is the major site for thinking, awareness,
behavior, feelings, and involved in learning and memory.
Reasoning, memory and attention are brain functions essential for
independent living. Cognitive abilities, such as focusing, memory,
ability to learn and retain new things, decrease due to the normal
process of aging but other factors can alter function and the rate
of deterioration. What happens when the brain is deprived of vital
input for learning, information exchange and connection with others
that is provided by the ears – the sensation of sound?
Scientists have established a link between Hearing Loss (HL) and
cognitive function. Physiologically, the true organ of hearing is the
brain as it assigns meaning to the sounds that are transmitted from
the ears. Loss of hearing can impact a person’s ability to detect
sound (peripheral system) as well as the ability to process or under-
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