Hearing Loss And Dementia: Can Treatment Of Hearing Loss Reduce Dementia Risk?

Hearing loss is the condition when you are unable to hear sounds partially or completely, in one or both of your ears. It usually develops gradually, with time and surveys point out that about 25 per cent of people between the age of 65 and 74 experience hearing loss.

Hearing loss is also termed as decreased hearing, deafness and loss of hearing [1][2].

According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), there are three types of hearing loss. Each type is caused by different factors and the classifications are conductive hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), and mixed hearing loss.

The risk of long-term cognitive decline for those with hearing loss may be reduced by as much as 19 per cent by wearing a hearing aid or having a cochlear implant, according to a recent study. Hearing loss has been associated with dementia development in several studies [3].

Can Treatment Of Hearing Loss Reduce Dementia Risk?

Here are the important points from the study:

Point 1: Researchers in Singapore found that using hearing aids or having a cochlear implant to treat age-related hearing loss can reduce a person's risk of cognitive declines, such as dementia, by 19 per cent.

Point 2: The association between hearing loss and dementia has been demonstrated in research [4][5]. Hearing loss may increase dementia risk in one of the following ways, although a causal link has not yet been established.

Point 3: Physical changes in the ear and brain cortex, and impaired social interaction may affect brain function, hearing loss puts a cognitive burden on other functions, and changes in the brain may cause both hearing loss and dementia.

Point 4: Researchers examined cognitive scores and longitudinal data in order to determine whether hearing aids and implants are associated with cognitive impairment and dementia over the long term.

Point 5: According to the researchers, hearing aid users had a significantly lower risk of cognitive decline than those with uncorrected hearing loss. In other words, hearing correction reduced the risk of all stages of cognitive decline by 19 per cent, including mild cognitive impairment (MCI), conversion of MCI to dementia, and incident dementia [6].

Point 6: As a result, the researchers added that this association may be explained in a variety of ways. It is possible, for example, that people with hearing restorative devices are more able to participate and follow through on cognitive assessments, or there may be a more mechanistic connection [7]. It is evident that addressing hearing loss with intervention may improve a person's cognitive performance [8].

Point 7: The logic is that if a person is allocating a large number of cognitive resources to trying to interpret sounds, they have fewer resources to devote to executive functioning and other cognitive functions. These cognitive resources can be redirected to other cognitive tasks if the hearing is improved.

On A Final Note...

According to the researchers, hearing loss may be linked with dementia due to its cognitive burden rather than a physical cause.

Additionally, the study results support a long-held intuitive principle that it makes perfect sense to obtain hearing aids as soon as one's hearing begins to decline, particularly if one is also displaying signs of dementia, regardless of the cause.