While hearing loss is commonly age-related or can be due to numerous underlying factors, it may also be an early symptom of a cognitive condition such as dementia. Research also shows that hearing loss from ages 40 to 65 is connected with a higher risk of developing dementia.
Managing your hearing health and using good-quality hearing aids to prevent hearing loss from worsening can reduce the chances of developing dementia in the future. Clinical studies have proven that leaving hearing loss untreated puts a person at a higher dementia risk than another with healthy hearing.
However, it remains essential to have hearing loss checked and treated at any age, and it is always important to clarify that hearing changes are not a conclusive sign of a risk of dementia or an indication that you will develop a cognitive condition.
Key Takeaways:
- Hearing loss can be an early symptom of dementia and is often an indication that a person with hearing loss earlier in life is at greater risk of developing a cognitive condition.
- Managing hearing loss properly with quality hearing aids can prevent further hearing reductions while addressing the risk of dementia and bringing this into line with the average risk levels of individuals with healthy hearing.
- Both peripheral and central hearing loss have been linked with dementia, although the former increases the risk of dementia, whereas the latter is more frequently an early symptom.
Why Does Hearing Loss Mean the Risk of Dementia Rises?
There are two generalised types of hearing loss. Peripheral hearing loss means your ears become less efficient at detecting noises, which can raise the likelihood of developing dementia – although this risk may also rely on multiple other variables, such as your familial medical history.
Central hearing loss is different. It means your ears can hear, but your brain cannot process those sounds properly.
While peripheral hearing loss can be treated with hearing aids, central hearing loss isn’t always easy to correct and can be a symptom of Alzheimer’s, which sometimes appears many years before the condition develops.
An article published by Johns Hopkins indicates the clinical correlations between hearing loss and cognitive decline:
- Around 8% of people with dementia also experience hearing loss.
- General health risks increase by 47% every ten years for a person living with hearing loss, with greater exposure to falls, depression and other conditions.Related reading: Can tinnitus cause depression?
The clinical trial referenced in the above article has since concluded. It found that, when tracking just under 1,000 participants, using prescribed hearing aids as an intervention for hearing loss slowed cognitive decline by as much as 48% and proved that hearing loss treatments can effectively reduce the risks of dementia.
For the first time, this data confirms that there is a tangible connection between hearing loss and cognition.
Rather than being a coincidence, where older adults are equally more likely to develop cognitive conditions and experience age-related hearing loss, we now know that hearing loss can be a symptom of dementia, or untreated hearing loss unrelated to dementia can increase the risk of developing this or other conditions like Alzheimer’s.
Related Reading: Can hearing aids prevent cognitive decline?
How Hearing Aids Can Effectively Reduce the Likelihood of Developing Dementia
The first step in taking action to protect your hearing and prevent any further hearing loss is to book a detailed ear and hearing assessment with your nearest Regain Hearing clinic.
Finding out if there are any underlying factors contributing to hearing loss and accessing independent advice about the right hearing aids or other hearing protection is a good way to be proactive about reducing the chance of dementia.
Part of the link is thought to be around communication. Well-managed hearing loss ensures you can continue to communicate, which helps to stimulate and sustain your memory capacity.
In contrast, leaving hearing loss unaddressed may mean that your short-term memory begins to decline further, which in turn puts you at potentially greater risk of developing dementia, especially if the condition is prevalent in your family history.
What do our experts say?
“Addressing hearing loss is a critical step in reducing the risk of dementia. By removing the stigma around seeking help for hearing issues, we can foster better communication, decrease social isolation, and ultimately slow the progression of cognitive decline. It’s about taking charge of our brain health and enhancing our overall well-being.” Lindsay Fletcher (nee Stride)
“Addressing hearing loss is a critical step in reducing the risk of dementia. By removing the stigma around seeking help for hearing issues, we can foster better communication, decrease social isolation, and ultimately slow the progression of cognitive decline. It’s about taking charge of our brain health and enhancing our overall well-being.” The Vital Importance of Hearing Health for Long-Term Well-Being
Analysts believe that hearing loss can contribute to withdrawals from social activities, causing isolation and loneliness, which are also known to be contributing factors in people suffering from poor mental health and serious conditions like depression.
Hearing is essential to our daily lives and key to maintaining and safeguarding the healthy activity and responses in our brains, which is why hearing aids can almost halve the rate at which dementia might develop.
The more severe the hearing loss, the greater the risk factors. For example, a person with mild, untreated hearing loss may have double the risk of dementia than another with good hearing.
This risk factor increases to three times for those with moderate hearing loss and five times for individuals with severe hearing loss.
What Is the Best Way to Manage Hearing Loss and Prevent Cognitive Decline?
As we’ve seen, taking care of your hearing health can reduce multiple risk factors – including elements like depression and social isolation, which are also connected to dementia.
Unaddressed hearing loss, particularly in middle adult life, is, however, thought to be one of the major risk factors and one that is relatively easy to address.
Checking your hearing, making sure your hearing aids are working properly, and seeking advice to adjust or replace hearing aids that don’t seem to be meeting your needs are all important ways to manage your hearing and ensure you don’t disregard hearing loss and experience further health challenges later on.
If you’ve experienced changes to your hearing, have ongoing or progressive hearing loss, or have noticed a drop in the sounds you can hear, either suddenly or over an extended period, it is always worthwhile having this assessed – even if your hearing loss is currently mild and having a negligible impact on your life.
By using the best possible hearing aids, potentially combined with hearing protection devices where necessary, you can both slow the speed of hearing loss, prevent further damage to your hearing abilities, reduce the risk of developing dementia, and lower the pace at which dementia could develop if you have other risk factors.
