How Hearing Aids Can Prevent Cognitive Decline

In 2013, Johns Hopkins University researcher and epidemiologist Dr. Frank Lin directed a study which was the first to examine the possible consequence of hearing loss on brain performance.

Volunteers with hearing loss took repeated cognitive examinations, used to quantify memory and thinking skills, over the span of six years. Hearing tests were also completed over the same time frame.

What the investigators found was concerning: those with hearing loss had cognitive abilities that declined 30 to 40 percent faster than those with normal hearing, even after accounting for other contributing factors like age, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

But that wasn’t everything. Not only did those with hearing loss suffer from higher rates of cognitive decline—the decline was directly related to the degree of the hearing loss. The more serious the hearing loss, the greater deterioration to brain function. Furthermore, those with hearing loss displayed indicators of substantial cognitive deterioration 3.2 years sooner than those with normal hearing.

The research demonstrates a deep connection between hearing loss and cognitive decline, but the question remains as to how hearing loss can trigger cognitive decline.

How Hearing Loss Triggers Cognitive Decline

Researchers have suggested three explanations for the relationship between hearing loss and cognitive decline:

Hearing loss can contribute to social isolation, which is a known risk factor for cognitive decline.

Hearing loss causes the brain to allocate too many resources to the processing of sound, at the expense of memory and thinking.

A shared underlying injury to the brain causes both hearing loss and decreased brain function.

Perhaps it’s a mixture of all three. What is evident is that, irrespective of the cause, the connection between hearing loss and cognitive decline is strong.

The concern now becomes, what can we do about it? Experts estimate that 27 million Americans over age 50, including two-thirds of men and women aged 70 years and older, suffer from some type of hearing loss. Is there a way those with hearing loss can avoid or counter cognitive decline?

Can Hearing Aids Help?

Remember the three ways that hearing loss is considered to cause more rapid cognitive decline. Now, think about how hearing aids could address or correct those causes:

Individuals with hearing aids gain back their social confidence, become more socially active, and the side effects of social isolation—and its contribution to mental decline—are lessened or removed.

Hearing aids protect against the fatiguing impact of struggling to hear. Mental resources are freed up for memory and thinking.

Hearing aids present amplified sound stimulation to the brain, helping to re-establish neural connections.

Admittedly, this is only theoretical, and the big question is: does utilizing hearing aids, in fact, slow or protect against accelerated mental decline, and can we measure this?

The answer may be discovered in an upcoming study by Dr. Frank Lin, the head researcher of the initial study. Lin is working on the first clinical trial to study whether hearing aids can be objectively measured to protect against or minimize brain decline.

Stay tuned for the results, which we’ll address on our blog once published.