Make no mistake: there are a few ways that you can preserve your mental acuteness and fend off conditions like dementia, cognitive decline, and Alzheimer’s disease. Social engagement and involvement in the workforce are among the most notable. Whichever methods are used to deal with cognitive decline, however, keeping your hearing strong and using hearing aids if you need them will be tremendously helpful.
Numerous studies show that the conditions listed above are all connected to neglected hearing loss. This article will outline the link between cognitive decline and hearing loss and how wearing hearing aids can decrease the probability of these conditions becoming an imminent problem.
The Link Between Hearing Loss And Cognitive Decline
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have conducted several studies over the years to examine the link between hearing loss and cognitive decline. The same story was revealed by each study: cognitive decline was more common with people who suffer from hearing loss. One study demonstrated, in fact, that there was a 24% higher instance of Alzheimer’s in people who have impaired hearing.
Though dementia isn’t specifically caused by hearing loss there is definitely a connection. The leading theories indicate that your brain must work overtime when you can’t properly process sounds. That means that activities such as memory and cognition, which require more energy, can’t function efficiently because your brain has to spend so much of that energy on more simple tasks.
Your mental health can also be severely impacted by hearing loss. Studies have shown that hearing loss is linked to depression, social isolation, anxiety, and might even influence schizophrenia. Staying socially active, as mentioned, is the best way to maintain your mental health and preserve your cognitive ability. In many examples, hearing loss causes people to feel self-conscious out in public, which means they’ll turn to isolation instead. The lack of human contact can lead to the other mental health issues mentioned above and eventually lead to cognitive impairments.
Keeping Your Mental Faculties Acute With Hearing Aids
One of the best tools we have to fight dementia and other cognition conditions such as Alzheimer’s is hearing aids. The problem is that only one in seven of the millions of people over the age of 50 who deal with hearing loss actually wear a hearing aid. It might be a stigma or a previous negative experience that keeps people from hearing aids, but in fact, hearing aids have been shown to help people protect their cognitive function by helping them hear better.
When your hearing is harmed for a prolonged amount of time, the brain could forget how to identify some common sounds and will have to relearn them. It’s important to let your brain go back to processing more important tasks and hearing aids can do just that by stopping this problem in the first place and helping you relearn any sounds the brain has forgotten.
If you want to find out what options are available to help you begin hearing better get in touch with us.