Enhancing Well-Being: The Impact of Social Relationships and Hearing Health

Social relationships influence our overall well-being.

We all yearn for a long and fulfilling life, and patients are looking for the ways that hearing intervention will improve their lives. The key to unlocking areas of well-being lies not just in our genetics or lifestyle, but in something far more profound and interconnected: our social relationships.

Social Relationships influence health outcomes

Research has shown that the quantity and quality of our social relationships have a profound impact on our overall well-being.

A 2010 meta-analytic review¹ looking across 148 studies found that individuals with adequate social relationships have a 50% greater likelihood of survival compared to those with poor or insufficient social relationships. In other words, social relationships exceeds many well-known risk factors for mortality like obesity, excessive alcohol consumption, and physical inactivity.

But the story does not end there. We must also consider the impact of hearing loss on one’s social-emotional well-being. Individuals with hearing loss face multiple challenges—ones that goes beyond the impairment of their auditory senses. The cascade of events that occur over a developing hearing loss often evidence that those with untreated hearing loss are more at risk for depression, loneliness, have poorer quality relationships with their significant others, and are more at risk for developing cognitive changes.

The role of the HCP is crucial in recommending features that foster communication

By enhancing communication and social interaction, hearing aids play a crucial role in strengthening social relationships. In quiet, Infinio features Speech Enhancer. This automatic feature improves speech intelligibility and reduces listening effort when the speaker is in an adjacent room, from afar, or just has a soft voice. This can be helpful at home when people are having conversations from a room away, or at a private appointment with a physician, allied health provider, financial advisor, veterinarian, or colleague.

And when the going gets tough, Infinio rises to the challenge. With Infinio-R, your patients are going to benefit from our directionality approaches like UltraZoom and StereoZoom that have shown to improve speech intelligibility, decrease listening effort, and allow people to be more socially active in group settings.

Infinio Sphere takes hearing in noise a step further with our DEEPSONIC chip, the world’s first DNN-dedicated chip with 4.5 million neural connections. DEEPSONIC powers Spheric Speech Clarity, which can deliver up to 10 dB SNR benefit so your patients can be in the moment, with ease, with confidence, and with connection.

The combination of the HCP expertise and the functionality of hearing aids that improve speech understanding and reduce listening effort allows your patients to foster relationships and move confidently throughout the world. For more information about Phonak products, visit Phonak.com