Saving Our 5 Senses as We Age

Declines in hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch happen with age. Protect and enhance what's left

Jazz trumpeter Kris Chesky pops in foam earplugs when he mows the lawn or gets on an airplane. Onstage, he asks the band to play quiet passages even more pianissimo. “Once you’ve got hearing loss, due to aging or sound exposure, you can’t get it back,” says Chesky, 58, a University of North Texas music professor and codirector of the Texas Center for Performing Arts Health. “I want to keep what I’ve got, even if it makes me a little unpopular sometimes.” Sometimes during in home physical rehabilitation in Denver, patients will experience changes in their physical senses. It is important to know how to take care of these sense as we get older.

Tens of millions of Americans suffer age-related losses in at least one of their senses, according to a recent University of Chicago study. Such changes can make everyday pleasures feel flat while increasing the risk of other health issues, such as poor nutrition, falling, depression or dementia.

Hearing

A lifetime of noise — power tools, a loud workplace, that Who concert — along with normal aging can cause deterioration. The tiny hair cells in your ears that send signals to your brain don’t regenerate, notes Frank Lin, associate professor of otolaryngology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Your brain shrinks as you age, but hearing loss can accelerate this shrinking, which can more than double the risk of dementia. You’re also more likely to suffer falls. “Balance gets thrown off when you can’t hear your footsteps,” Lin says. Hearing loss also increases your odds for depression and loneliness. 

Taste

Are you putting more salt in your soup or sugar in your tea? Cells within your taste buds may not regenerate at the same rate as when you were younger, says researcher Nancy Rawson, associate director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. 

Some ailments, including diabetes, upper respiratory tract infections and rheumatoid arthritis, can also affect taste sensitivity, Rawson notes. “As a result, you may use more salt and sugar, add more butter or margarine to bring out flavor, eat less fruit and vegetables, and go for more sweet or salty processed foods,” she says. 

Touch

About 30 percent of people in their 50s say their sense of touch isn’t what it used to be; another 30 percent say it’s downright poor. Normal brain aging and the gradual loss of touch-sensing receptors in skin may explain the problem. 

Your ability to detect pain, heat and cold weakens as your sense of touch declines. “And aging can affect sensors in joints, muscles and tendons, as well as skin, that give your brain important information about where your body is in space. As a result, you may feel unsteady or clumsy,” says Winnie Dunn, chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy Education at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. 

Read the full article here: Hearing Loss, Decline Of Senses With Age - AARP http://bit.ly/2sWuyW0

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