Hearing Aids Mitigate Cognitive Decline in Older People

Although it might come as a surprise, hearing loss has a relationship with cognitive decline. These two conditions seem to be completely distinct, one located in the ears and the other located in the brain. How can such different conditions be related in this way? Researchers have been asking the same questions.

Many studies have demonstrated the statistical relationship between higher rates of hearing loss and higher rates of cognitive decline, including dementia. One of the top scholars in this area is Dr. Frank Lin at Johns Hopkins University. Although they have a clear picture of the correlation between these two conditions, it remains somewhat mysterious which is causing which, or if they are jointly caused by a third factor.

A Link Between Hearing Loss & Cognitive Decline

A recent study has pointed in the direction of answers. One way to identify if hearing loss causes faster cognitive decline would be to design an experiment that introduced a treatment. If you gathered a group of people with hearing loss, gave only half of that group a treatment and then measured what proportion of each group had cognitive decline, then that would be a way to suggest if hearing loss was causing cognitive decline in general. Of course, it would not be ethical to deprive people of a life-changing treatment, so that kind of experiment is impossible.

Yet, the low rates of adoption of hearing loss treatment are such that people in effect self-sort into these two groups. Researchers are able to track the rates of cognitive decline among people who have untreated hearing loss and those who have adopted treatment for hearing loss in the form of hearing aids.

This recent study discovered that indeed those who wore hearing aids demonstrated much lower rates of cognitive decline than those who did not wear hearing aids. In addition, the rate of decline was slower. This study, conducted by lead researcher Asri Maharani and her associates at the University of Manchester, was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The findings have significant implications for not only our understanding of preventing cognitive decline but also our perception of the relationship between hearing loss and cognition, more generally.

Understanding the Connection between Hearing & Brain Health

One idea about this connection is that it has something to do with the use of language in spoken conversations. Imagine, if you will, that you are having a conversation without hearing loss. Your ears pick up the sounds of words and assemble them into bigger units of meaning, such as phrases or sentences. You can rely on visual cues to assist you if you don’t hear something due to extra noise or to help you interpret something that could have two meanings.

Now put yourself in the shoes of a person with hearing loss. In a conversation, you are only gathering bits of sound. Some sounds are too quiet to register, and others are presented to the ears like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. Trying to assemble these fragments of sound into a meaningful word, phrase, or sentence can take too much mental effort.

When the brain is constantly overwhelmed with the task of assembling a fragmentary puzzle, it scrambles and becomes overwhelmed. You can imagine that this feeling of confusion and being overwhelmed might spread to other areas of cognition, as well. Indeed, some researchers have performed imaging on the brain to witness activity moving to unlikely places in the brain for someone who has hearing loss.

Benefits of Treating Hearing Loss

With this process in mind, you can also imagine how helpful hearing aids can be. Rather than freaking out at the lack of meaningful sounds to process, your brain can be restored to the easier task of assembling a puzzle with all the pieces. With that basic function in place, the mind is freed up to perform its other work with devoted thought.

By reducing the cognitive load of everyday life, hearing aids can assist the brain in doing its work of complex cognitive processing, as well. When like presents the challenge of a puzzle, the brain will not already be puzzling over trying to understand what others are saying. Who needs more puzzles? Let’s take advantage of the mental relief that can come through using hearing aids.  Contact us today to schedule an appointment for a hearing test!