People who use a hearing aid before the age of 70 can dramatically reduce their risk of dementia, new research shows.
Dementia, which is the loss of cognitive functioning, affects more than six million Americans and leads to more than 100,000 deaths each year, according to the National Institutes of Health. As the U.S. population ages, dementia cases are expected to double by 2060, NIH says.
Age-related hearing loss is a risk factor for developing dementia, and a research letter published in JAMA Neurology on Monday found that using hearing aids could reduce this risk.
After studying nearly 3,000 participants over up to two decades researchers found those with hearing loss who used hearing aids had a 61 percent lower risk for dementia among those younger than 70 years at the time of their hearing loss diagnosis.
“This finding highlights the importance of early intervention for HL [hearing loss] for possible prevention of dementia,” the authors of the study wrote.
But the study noted only 17 percent of people with moderate to severe hearing loss use hearing aids.
UCLA Health gave three possible theories for the link between hearing loss and dementia including that hearing loss causes the brain to deteriorate faster.
Additionally, your brain works harder to understand conversation when you can’t hear well. Straining your brain regularly like this can impact your cognitive function.
Hearing loss can also limit your social engagement as conversing in noisy environments is less enjoyable. Your brain may struggle to be intellectually stimulated without socialization.
Age-related hearing loss affects one in three people older than 60, according to the American Academy of Audiology. One in two people older than the age of 85 has hearing loss.
Common signs of hearing loss include asking people to repeat things, difficulty hearing and understanding speech in noisy settings, and turning the TV or radio up louder than normal.
The American Academy of Audiology warns untreated hearing loss can be connected to cognitive decline as well as depression, anxiety, paranoia and poor social relationships.
