Ear and Eye Health - Senior putting in hearing aid

While doctor’s visits are a common part of preventative medicine, we need to consider our ear and eye health as part of our routine check-ups, making sure that we keep our health in mind every day.

Taking Care of Health

Many health issues from damage to our sight and hearing can have permanent effects. These effects are often difficult to fix and may even require lifelong accommodations.

Fortunately, taking care of your health to avoid damage is easy. With a combination of regular check-ups and taking precautions, you can keep your eyes and ears healthier longer, maintaining a high quality of life.

Vision Health

There are many ways to be proactive about your eye health:

  • Get checked – Regular visits to an optometrist can help to catch any illnesses early on. Also, keeping tabs on your health with the help of a Doctor can help to catch problems that could affect your eyesight, like disease or degenerative problems. Detecting these issues early can help you and your medical team come up with solutions to minimize or even reverse damage before it goes too far.
  • Healthy lifestyle – Your vision is just as much a part of your health as any other body part. Taking care of your eye health involves eating a balanced diet, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding high-risk activities like smoking.
  • Protecting your eyes – Protective eyewear is important in many situations, such as wearing sunglasses in bright conditions or safety glasses at work. If you already use glasses or contact lenses, keep them clean and in good condition so that they can continue doing their job without putting you at risk for infection.
  • Take breaks – If you spend a lot of time looking at a computer or focusing on one object, follow the “20-20-20” rule. Every 20 minutes, focus on an object about 20 feet away for just 20 seconds to relax your eyes and reduce fatigue.
Ear and Eye Health

Hearing Health

Most damage to hearing happens from exposure to loud noises. However, they can also be the result of exposure to certain chemicals or even the result of some medical conditions.

Hearing damage from exposure to loud noises changes depending on many factors that can put someone at higher or lower risk. Things like the volume of the exposure, how long it lasted, the type of noise, and whether the ear has a chance to rest between exposures all change how your hearing can be damaged. For example, over a long period, anything over 85 decibels (about the volume of a motorbike) can cause damage. While your ears can’t sense pain, you can suspect damage if you feel that your hearing is muffled or ringing, or if you are having a hard time hearing.

Tips to avoid damage – Reducing exposure is the key to reducing hearing damage. Try using earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones in loud environments, and make sure to take breaks to give your hearing time to recover after a risky exposure. Hearing tests are a good tool to help track potential damage, and are offered at hearing clinics. If you have lots of high-risk exposure, consider getting your hearing examined annually to keep track of any changes.

Preventative care is key to maintaining lifelong hearing and vision whenever possible. Hearing and seeing are a part of most people’s lives that many take for granted until they have problems with them. Take control of your health with the right precautions to keep your ears and eyes healthy and safe.