Our overall health including mental health is important to monitor and be aware of regardless of what health condition we may have. This article covers how having Usher Syndrome may affect someone's mental health, social life as well as their financial health. People's experiences with Usher Syndrome may range from severity of hearing impairment to combined visual and hearing impairments plus additional social and economic factors. Considering that everyone's experience of Usher Syndrome may be different, it may also affect someone's emotions or life experiences differently. This article particularly references a study that was done of 162 participants with Usher Syndrome in Sweden. The findings of this study are quite interesting. The researchers found more similarities than differences among the participants in terms of the effect they experienced in their social trust, health and finances (Wahlqvist Moa, Möller Claes, Möller Kerstin, Danermark Berth, 2020). Some of these similarities included feelings of vulnerability due to their blindness and/or deafness. They discovered in this study that those with type 3 Usher Syndrome seem to experience the most problems or distress related to the possible outcomes of their diagnosis (Wahlqvist Moa, Möller Claes, Möller Kerstin, Danermark Berth, 2020). It was mentioned in this article that “Because vision and hearing are complementary senses and enhance each other, impairments in one sense (i.e., hearing or vision) make it possible to compensate for restrictions in the other. However, for those with deafblindness, the ability to compensate becomes restricted due to impairments in both senses'' (Möller C., 2003). This article also references ‘social trust’ a lot. Social trust may be best defined as how we as people allow ourselves to be vulnerable to others.
What this means for Usher syndrome: Impairments of different kinds may negatively impact our social lives if we're not aware of how to avoid it from doing so. It is important for us to be aware of any changes in our emotions. Having any sort of impairment may be difficult to cope with, especially if there is a lack of support. It’s important to keep watch on any change in emotions and recognize each emotion as we feel them. Depression and loneliness is a real thing that can progress quickly if we don’t seek the proper care and support. Although, anyone can experience depression and/or loneliness even without Usher Syndrome, it is still important to know we have a support system to help in these times we feel down. Reading this article may be helpful to note any possible similarities or simply to obtain others’ experiences in regard to how Usher Syndrome has impacted their social trust, financial life and even their ability to trust the healthcare system. Finally, this article talks about how being around either another person with Usher Syndrome or a community that can provide help and support may help. According to this article there is ongoing research that is needed in order to determine if some sort of rehabilitation may be helpful in terms of how someone with Usher Syndrome may feel supported and/or understood.
