Want to suck all the joy out of your next family get-together? Start to talk about dementia.
Dementia is not a subject most people are actively looking to talk about, mainly because it’s rather scary. A degenerative mental disease in which you gradually (or, more frighteningly, quickly) lose your cognitive faculties, dementia causes you to lose touch with reality, go through mood swings, and have memory loss. Nobody wants to go through that.
So stopping or at least slowing dementia is important for many individuals. It turns out, untreated hearing loss and dementia have several fairly clear connections and correlations.
That might seem a bit… surprising to you. After all, what does your brain have to do with your ears (lots, it turns out)? Why are the dangers of dementia increased with hearing loss?
What happens when your hearing loss goes untreated?
Perhaps you’ve noticed your hearing loss already, but you’re not too concerned about it. You can simply turn up the volume, right? Maybe you’ll just put on the captions when you’re watching your favorite program.
On the other hand, maybe you haven’t detected your hearing loss yet. Perhaps the signs are still subtle. Either way, hearing loss and mental decline have a powerful correlation. That might have something to do with what happens when you have neglected hearing loss.
- Conversation becomes harder to understand. Consequently, you may start to isolate yourself socially. You may become removed from loved ones and friends. You won’t talk with others as much. This type of social isolation is, well, bad for your brain. And naturally your social life. Further, most individuals who have this type of isolation won’t even recognize that hearing loss is the cause.
- Your brain will begin to work a lot harder. Your ears will get less audio information when you have untreated hearing loss. Because of this, your brain tries to fill in the gaps. This is incredibly taxing. The current concept is, when this takes place, your brain pulls power from your thinking and memory centers. The idea is that after a while this contributes to dementia (or, at least, helps it progress). Your brain working so hard can also result in all manner of other symptoms, like mental stress and exhaustion.
So your hearing impairment is not quite as innocuous as you may have believed.
One of the principal signs of dementia is hearing loss
Maybe your hearing loss is mild. Like, you can’t hear whispers, but everything else sounds just fine. Well, even with that, your chance of developing dementia is doubled.
Which means that even minor hearing loss is a fairly good initial indication of a risk of dementia.
Now… What does that mean?
Well, it’s important not to forget that we’re dealing with risk here. Hearing loss isn’t a guarantee of cognitive decline or even an early symptom of dementia. Instead, it just means you have a higher chance of developing dementia or going through cognitive decline later in life. But that can actually be good news.
Your risk of cognitive decline is lowered by effectively dealing with your hearing loss. So how do you deal with your hearing loss? Here are a few ways:
- Make an appointment with us to identify your current hearing loss.
- Wearing a hearing aid can help decrease the impact of hearing loss. Now, can hearing aids prevent dementia? That’s not an easy question to answer, but we recognize that brain function can be improved by using hearing aids. This is the reason why: You’ll be able to participate in more conversations, your brain won’t need to work so hard, and you’ll be a little more socially involved. Research implies that treating hearing loss can help minimize your risk of developing dementia in the future. That isn’t the same as stopping dementia, but it’s a good thing regardless.
- You can take a few steps to protect your hearing from further harm if you detect your hearing loss early enough. You could, for instance, use ear protection if you work in a noisy setting and steer clear of noisy events such as concerts or sporting events.
Other ways to decrease your dementia risk
You can reduce your chance of cognitive decline by doing some other things as well, of course. This might include:
- Be sure you get plenty of sleep each night. Some studies have linked a higher risk of dementia to getting fewer than four hours of sleep per night.
- Get some exercise.
- A diet that helps you maintain a healthy blood pressure and is generally healthy can go a long way. For individuals who naturally have higher blood pressure, it may be necessary to use medication to bring it down.
- Don’t smoke. Seriously. Smoking will increase your chance of cognitive decline and will impact your overall health (this list also includes drinking too much alcohol).
Of course, scientists are still studying the link between dementia, hearing loss, lifestyle, and more. There are so many causes that make this disease so complicated. But the lower your risk, the better.
Hearing is its own benefit
So, hearing better will help reduce your overall danger of developing cognitive decline down the line. You’ll be bettering your life now, not just in the future. Imagine, no more solitary visits to the store, no more lost conversations, no more misunderstandings.
Losing out on the important things in life is no fun. And a small amount of hearing loss management, maybe in the form of a hearing aid, can help significantly.
So make sure to schedule an appointment with us right away!
References
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/hearing-loss-and-the-dementia-connection
