Add Hearing Test to Your Pre-Retirement To-do List
The perfect retirement means something different for each of us. The dream might be golfing a different course every week, traveling the continents in search of the ideal beach, making the world a better place by volunteering with a service club, or spending more time with the grandkids. Regardless of the dream, the common underlying hope is good health and financial stability well into your retirement years.
Recently there has been a lot of talk about the importance of treating hearing loss early to aid in retaining cognitive health, and research continues to support those claims. But did you know that treating hearing loss can also help retain a healthy bank account?
A study published in Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology (2012;121[12]:771) reported that people with untreated hearing loss had incomes that were on average 25% less than their counterparts with normal hearing. That means you’d have to work quite a few extra years to retire with the same nest egg.
In 2021 Statistics Canada reported hearing loss in 51% of people in their 50’s and 77% of
people in their 60’s. Many of those individuals don’t perceive they have a hearing problem –they just find meetings more exhausting and phone calls more frustrating.
Getting hearing loss identified and treated early can help you keep your edge, maintain your maximum earning potential and help you retire at the top of your game. Not to mention, going to work every day is way more enjoyable when you can hear the jokes around the water cooler.
Getting your hearing assessed while you’re still working also gives you the opportunity to take full advantage of third-party insurance and employer-provided extended health benefits. Many benefits packages reimburse at least a portion of audiology services and the purchase of prescribed hearing aids.
We all want to leave work while we still have an edge and move into retirement with cognitive and financial health.
Getting a hearing test is a pretty easy thing to check off the Retirement To-Do List.
Martine
Schlagintweit,
M.Sc.,Aud(C),RAUD/RHIP
Audiologist Hear Inc. Saanichton
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Ask The Dentist!
by Dr. C Ross Crapo DDS
Dealing With Conundrums
Q: I’m in a state. My life has had all kinds of ups and downs. It seems that I go from emergency to emergency putting out fires. It’s a drag physically and emotionally. The latest is my teeth. They are a mess. Decayed and broken down. I have about three left standing and the rest are decayed to the gum. I’d like to have something to smile with, and I’m afraid of dentures because I saw my mother and grandmother with their teeth out and it grossed me out. But then, I don’t smile for fear of grossing everyone around me out. So I have seen some dentists and most have said the same thing – there’s nothing to save. It’s really discouraging because what
is next is dentures. I’ve read about implants, and I like that idea but they’re expensive and I need them for both top and bottom teeth.
I reached out to a dentist and he said I could go with an upper denture for a period of time and put implants and a bridge on the lower. He said the lower denture is very hard to get used to and I’d really be compromised in chewing. He also said he’d have to graft bone in the sockets of the upper teeth because it would keep the right amount of bone in place for future implants. The thing is that I can’t smile, and I need my upper teeth to smile. Since I can’t do both with implants, and a lower denture is terrible, I just can’t make up
my mind. Any advice? My lower is worse than my upper. I’ve got a partial that’s barely hanging on.
A: Your situation is not uncommon so let’s talk about specifics. First of all, function – the ability to just chew your food. Loss of lower teeth replaced by a lower denture reduces chewing forces and efficiency to less than 25% of your own teeth. Replacing the denture and unsavable teeth with an implant supported bridge gives you all the support of normal, heathy teeth. The teeth are fixed to the implants, so your confidence and smile is natural looking and feeling. The upper denture uses your palate for suction and is far more
The Science To Washing Your Car, But It’s Not Rocket Science.
Old ice cream bucket, check. Dish soap, check. Old sponge of unknown origin, check. Looks like you are ready to wash the car and get it back to showroom shine, right?
If this sounds like you, we can’t take it anymore! It’s time for an intervention- your car is heading down a dark path and we are here to stop it. Your first session in car wash rehab begins now, but don’t worry, you’ll be on the road to swirl mark recovery in no time.
How many times have you stared back at your car in the sun after giving it a thorough washing, only to gaze upon the abundant swirl marks and wispy scratches in the clean paint?
Many of us believe that washing is only going to improve its appearance, and can’t possibly do anything to harm its finish. While this is true if you know how to correctly cleanse your ride, for the uneducated amateur, you can actually be doing more harm than good. Let’s explain.
The biggest contributor to paint swirls, dullness and scratches is improper use of the tool used to wash your vehicle, or “wash media” for the pro. Utilizing a brush, sponge or anything other than a soft microfiber wash mitt or edgeless towel will over time cause defects to appear in your paintwork. This is due to the fact that these aforementioned materials aren’t suitable for today’s softer and more delicate modern waterborne clear coats. As car manufacturers continue to shave costs and speed up production, we have seen paint systems becoming increasingly thinner, softer and more delicate. This means that traditional tools like a chamois, bristle brushes, sponges or old rags are just too abrasive to use. Not to mention they don’t usually lift and trap the dirt like microfiber does, but rather drag it across the surface. The result: swirls and scratches from grinding dirt over the paint. What can you do to prevent this from happening? The best method we can use is commonly referred to as the “Two Bucket Wash.” This involves utilizing two 5 gallon buckets filled with water, ideally with grit guard inserts in the bottoms, and adding quality car wash soap to only one of the buckets. Why two buckets you ask? The principle is straightforward. After washing a panel on the vehicle, instead of dunking the now dirty mitt into the soapy water as before, we now dip the mitt into the fresh water bucket to dislodge any dirt, and then move back to the soapy
bucket to retrieve more suds and begin washing the next panel. Now we are only putting a clean, freshly scrubbed mitt back onto our paint. Think of it like taking a shower, you don’t recycle the wash water you use, you only use fresh water coming out of the shower head. Same goes for your car wash. This one step alone will greatly reduce the visible swirls put into a paintjob, and keep your vehicle shining brighter for longer. After washing we always recommend drying the car with a leaf blower or soft microfiber towel to prevent water spotting. Now that you have a better understanding of proper wash etiquette, get out there and make it shine!
Interested in watching a more detailed step by step guide on how to wash your car the Stellar Finish way? Scan the QR code to
up your wash game. Stellar Finish is part of Renoson Industries located on the Saanich Peninsula in the Keating Industrial neighbourhood, and has been voted Best Detail Shop in Victoria for the last 7 consecutive years. A full service detailing, paint protection and customization centre for your vehicle, they specialize in making your ride look and feel its best. Stop by the showroom 6675 Mirah Rd. from Mon-Sat 8-5:30 or call/ visit 250-800-1666 stellarfinish.ca
stable than a lower denture. There are compromises, to force and taste, but it’s a much better intermediate step. If you go this route, you will be happier functionally and still get to smile. Yes, the root sockets that are left after the teeth come out are grafted with a mixture of human and bovine bone.
This prevents bone resorption (dissolving) during the time you have your upper denture. On your schedule, implants can be placed.
The placement of implants and construction of lower bridgework on those implants, in your case, on the day of extraction, is extremely
VICTORIA IMPLANT CENTRE
If we can help, we’d like to. Call for a consultation. Based on actual patient cases. ©Calvin Ross Crapo 778-410-2080 • VictoriaImplantCentre.com
