Want to Keep Your Brain Sharp? Take Care of Your Ears
By age 40, about one out of every 10 adults will experience some degree of hearing loss. It can happen so gradually that you don’t realize what you’re missing. By the time someone is convinced they have a hearing problem, age-related memory loss may have already set in. Improving your hearing with hearing aids can help slow down cognitive decline.
Consider these findings: Researchers tracked about 2,000 older adults in the U.S. both before and after they started using hearing aids. The adults were participants in a national study called the Health and Retirement Study. The study found the rate of cognitive decline was slowed by 75 percent following the adoption of hearing aids.
To assess cognition over time, researchers performed a battery of tests face-to-face with participants. This was done every two years from 1996 to 2014. One test to assess memory required participants to recall a list of 10 words, both immediately after the words were read aloud, and then again after the participants had been distracted by other tasks.
To put the findings in context, consider this: the slower rate of decline equates to remembering less than one more word on the 10 word recall test. So it’s a small but measurable effect and it adds to the evidence that hearing loss and cognitive decline are strongly linked.
Consider what someone is getting when their hearing is restored: “Stimulating your ears stimulates the nerves that stimulate your brain.” So, when you use hearing aids, you are giving your ears back what they are missing as well as giving your brain what it needs to make sense of what you’re hearing. This can help you stay more stimulated and socially engaged.
People who have hearing loss might decline faster than those with normal hearing due to the loss of social stimulation. Social isolation, withdrawing from conversation, not attending family or social functions like they used to is a huge part of hearing loss.
We fit a lot of people with hearing ads, and sometimes they come in only after their loved ones insist on it. No one wants to wear a hearing aid. Typically, there’s convincing that needs to be done. There’s still a stigma attached to wearing hearing aids. But the technology has improved a lot in recent years. Hearing aids are a lot less noticeable and are typically covered up by hair.
So many factors influence healthy aging, including lifestyle habits such as diet and physical activity. But it’s important to know that steps to improve your hearing can play into the equation as well.
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