What to Expect Regarding Your Eyesight & Hearing as You Age
Like most members of the animal kingdom, human beings use the five senses (touch, smell, taste, sight, and hearing) to navigate their surroundings and explore their environment.
Now, as an older adult, you will already be fully aware of the natural decline of certain senses, namely your eyesight and your hearing, and as with any other expected change in your life, the more prepared you are, the easier it will be.
Everyone is different, but the following occurrences with eyes and ears are all exceedingly common, especially in older people.
Dry Eyes (Especially at Night)
People often comment on how their skin changes as they age, usually by remarking that the general feel is usually drier and less flexible, and the same thing can sometimes be applied to their eyes too.
Dry eyes (Keratoconjunctivitis Sicca) are a common issue in older people and occurs when their tear glands cannot produce enough tear drops to keep the eye moist and hydrated. Usually, specialist eye drops are prescribed for this condition, as dry eyes can affect eyesight by irritating the area around each eye to the point where their vision becomes cloudy.
It would also be worth pointing out that, should you be taking anti-depressant medicines to treat MDD (Major Depressive Disorder), dry eyes can sometimes be an unfortunate, albeit temporary, sideeffect.
Cataracts Are Exceedingly Common
Another key development for both men and women as they age, particularly in those over sixty-five, is the emergence of cataracts in one or both of your eyes.
Essentially, the best laser eye surgery can replace the lens of the eye that has been taken over by the cloudy cataract and return a person’s eyesight to its former glory. It is worth noting that traditional cataract operations do not use lasers, whereas advanced cataract surgery does.
Age-Related Hearing Loss
Next, just as in the case of most people needing to wear eyeglasses sooner or later, it is also highly likely that you yourself will experience a decline in the sharpness and accuracy of your hearing, either in one ear or both.
However, there are six common signs of age-related hearing loss, and if you feel you are experiencing two or more of the following, you should book an appointment with your medical doctor:
- Difficulty in following a conversation between two people
- Needing to turn the volume up and up on the television
- Not being able to understand someone behind the counter at a store
- Assuming the other person must be mumbling
- Asking people to repeat their last statement (sometimes even more than once)
- Finding it difficult to understand what young children are saying
Now, many people live to a ripe old age and never need to go shopping for hearing aids, instead just asking people to speak a little louder should they not catch the jist of the conversation. How someone wants to deal with their hearing loss is a personal choice, and you should never feel pressured into getting hearing aids by well-meaning family members if you do not want to try them.