Want to suck all the joy out of your next family gathering? Start talking about dementia.

Dementia isn’t a topic most people are intentionally seeking to talk about, mostly because it’s rather frightening. A degenerative mental disease in which you gradually (or, more frighteningly, quickly) lose your mental faculties, dementia forces you to lose touch with reality, experience mood swings, and have memory issues. Nobody wants to go through that.

So preventing or at least delaying dementia is important for many individuals. It turns out, neglected hearing loss and dementia have several pretty clear connections and correlations.

You may be surprised by that. After all, what does your brain have to do with your ears (a lot, it turns out)? Why are the risks of dementia increased with hearing loss?

When you ignore hearing loss, what are the consequences?

You realize that you’re starting to lose your hearing, but it isn’t at the top of your list of concerns. You can simply crank up the volume, right? Maybe you’ll simply turn on the captions when you’re watching your favorite program.

Or maybe your hearing loss has gone unobserved so far. Maybe the signs are still easy to dismiss. Cognitive decline and hearing loss are firmly linked either way. That may have something to do with what happens when you have untreated hearing loss.

• It becomes more difficult to understand conversations. Consequently, you may start to isolate yourself socially. You can withdraw from friends, family, and loved ones. You’ll talk to others less. It’s bad for your brain to separate yourself this way. And naturally your social life. What’s more, many individuals who experience hearing loss-related social isolation don’t even recognize it’s happening, and they likely won’t attribute their isolation to their hearing.
• Your brain will begin to work a lot harder. When you have untreated hearing loss, your ears don’t pick up nearly as much audio information (this is kind of obvious, yes, but stay with us). As a result, your brain tries to fill in the gaps. This is unbelievably taxing. Your brain will then have to get additional energy from your memory and thought centers (at least that’s the present concept). It’s believed that this might hasten the development of cognitive decline. Mental fatigue and exhaustion, as well as other possible symptoms, can be the consequence of your brain having to work so hard.

So your hearing loss is not quite as harmless as you might have suspected.

Hearing loss is one of the leading indicators of dementia

Let’s say you have only mild hearing impairment. Whispers may get lost, but you can hear everything else so…no big deal right? Well, turns out you’re still two times as likely to develop dementia as somebody who doesn’t have hearing loss.

So one of the initial signs of dementia can be even mild hearing loss.

So… How should we interpret this?

We’re looking at risk in this circumstance which is important to note. Hearing loss isn’t a guarantee of cognitive decline or even an early symptom of dementia. It does mean that later in life you will have a higher risk of developing cognitive decline. But that might actually be good news.

Your risk of dementia is reduced by effectively managing your hearing loss. So how do you manage your hearing loss? Here are a few ways:

• Wearing a hearing aid can help reduce the impact of hearing loss. So, can cognitive decline be avoided by using hearing aids? That isn’t an easy question to answer, but we recognize that brain function can be improved by wearing hearing aids. Here’s why: You’ll be more socially involved and your brain won’t have to work so hard to have discussions. Research indicates that treating hearing loss can help reduce your danger of developing dementia in the future. That isn’t the same as preventing dementia, but it’s a good thing regardless.
• You can take a few measures to protect your hearing from further harm if you detect your hearing loss early enough. As an example, you could avoid noisy events (such as concerts or sports games) or wear hearing protection when you’re around anything noisy (for example, if you work with heavy machinery).
• Come in and see us so we can help you determine any hearing loss you might have.

Lowering your chance of dementia – other methods

Of course, there are other things you can do to lower your chance of cognitive decline, too. This could include:

• Get some exercise.
• Be sure you get enough sleep each night. Some studies link fewer than four hours of sleep every night to a higher risk of dementia.
• Don’t smoke. Seriously. Smoking will increase your chance of cognitive decline and will impact your general health (excessive alcohol use is also on this list).
• A diet that helps you maintain a healthy blood pressure and is good for your overall well being can go a long way. For people who naturally have higher blood pressure, it may be necessary to use medication to bring it down.

Of course, scientists are still studying the connection between dementia, hearing impairment, lifestyle, and more. There are a multitude of causes that make this disease so complex. But the lower your risk, the better.

Being able to hear is its own advantage

So, over time, hearing better will reduce your general risk of dementia. But it’s not just your future golden years you’ll be improving, it’s right now. Imagine, no more missed conversations, no more garbled misunderstandings, no more quiet and lonely trips to the grocery store.

Losing out on the important things in life stinks. And a little bit of hearing loss management, perhaps in the form of a hearing aid, can help significantly.

So make sure to schedule an appointment with us right away!

Call Today to Set Up an Appointment

References

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/hearing-loss-and-the-dementia-connection