Proper Hearing -Keeping your mind function

An observation  from the depths of working autism.

As people age, naturally hearing loss occurs ,nothing new here.  However  with my keen Autistic hearing clouding my view of the world I can tell you the smaller unknown higher pitches most humans don't realize they work with are indeed necessary to keep our brain function working.  The hearing I'm talking about is along the line of a decibel meter stuff. Of course, the natural hearing we know is vital as well.  Simply put the less hear the less we process and less able our minds become. The less we hear the less responsive our minds become.  I seen this first hand stranded here in the nursing home as many residents here don't hear a thing. I find those with more perfect hearing really do have the strongest minds. Those with little or no hearing have a huge loss of brain function. If an aid or someone works very hard to complete a conversation  the person might actually comes up with a full full response just like normal.  This indicates the mind is probably still there just not activated as there are no hearing signals to work from .

I would think EVERYONE needs a proper hearing test and hearing aids as they age so all their brain function keep working.  Again current psychology and thinking has no idea we process more noise than we think we do.

Anyway more to the point personally my parents are now in the loss hearing stage of life. My father is very proactive with his hearing and keeps it going the best he can.  He is blessed with very good mind function and his reactions are still crisp and his thoughts are very current and up with the conversation.  On the other hand mom need hearing aids desperately and has for some time now . Sadly her missing the of the words and noises she needed to be hearing has messed with her mind and she had lost lots of mental function.  I noticed, at recent family gathering mom is not all connected and is off in her own world not because she is rude but because she doesn't hear the clues  to keep her connected.  She was putting cookies in the oven out of time and in the wrong temp setting as she missed  all the conversation we had talking about turning the oven down and switching from one dish to another. When she drives she is startled and should not be when she is shocked or 'made aware' of something at the last moment.  Her missed reaction and late reaction  makes for poor driving.

Her hearing has been getting so bad for years now and she was blessed at work by the fact she could turn the volume up on her switchboard headsets.  That gave her the false since she was fine. Trust me AFTER she got off the hearing boosted  phone she could not hear.  After awhile when you don't hear things your mind goes blank with inactivity and then your mental function dies. I find I don't even try to talk to her anymore she has lost so much mental capacity that simple conversations are just pure work . As more and more of the mind shuts down from inactivity ,in this case not getting the vital signals from our hearing the mind becomes less and less able. 

I hope if  she did get her hearing tested and did do hearing aids she might at least become more responsive and perhaps a better driver if nothing else. I predict her mind function would improve as she would start processing more stuff again . I wonder about the odd of that happening however, previous conversations on this subject and indeed the purchase of a general use hearing aid were fruitless.

I hope someday when psychology finally has a real grasp on the mind , it might know and realizes  the importance of hearing and everyone in the nursing will be fitted with the best of hearing aids . It would go miles in keeping our mind functioning.

rich shull on the Blog Pre Rain Man Autism