Let’s be clear: there are a number of ways that you can maintain your mental acuity and ward off conditions such as cognitive decline, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Remaining social is one of the most significant while participating in the workforce appears to be another. Regardless of the method, though, treating hearing loss through hearing aids makes these activities a great deal easier and contributes in its own way to battling cognitive problems.
Numerous studies show that the conditions listed above are all connected to untreated 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 impending problem.
How Hearing Loss Contributes to Cognitive Decline
The link between hearing loss and cognitive decline has been analyzed several times over the years by researchers at Johns Hopkins. The results of each study told the same story: people with hearing loss struggled with dementia and cognitive decline in higher rates than those without. One study demonstrated, in fact, that there was a 24% higher instance of Alzheimer’s in people who have diminished hearing.
Though dementia isn’t specifically caused by hearing loss there is definitely a link. The primary 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 at full capacity because your brain has to use so much of that energy on more basic tasks.
Your mental health can also be severely impacted by hearing loss. Research has shown that hearing loss is connected to anxiety, depression, and might even affect schizophrenia. Staying socially active, as mentioned, is the best way to protect your mental health and preserve your cognitive clarity. In many examples, hearing loss causes people to feel self-conscious around others, which means they’ll turn to seclusion instead. The mental issues mentioned above are typically the result of the lack of human contact and can ultimately lead to significant cognitive decline.
Keeping Your Mental Faculties Sharp With Hearing Aids
Hearing aids are perhaps one of the best tools we have to maintain mental sharpness and combat disorders like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Sadly, most people who need hearing aids don’t wear them. It could be a stigma or a previous bad experience that keeps people using hearing aids, but the fact is that they are proven to help people hear better and retain their cognitive functions for longer periods of time.
When your hearing is damaged for a prolonged amount of time, the brain may forget how to recognize some everyday sounds and will need to relearn them. A hearing aid can either stop that scenario from occurring in the first place or assist you in relearning those sounds, which will permit your brain to focus on other, more essential tasks.
If you want to learn what options are available to help you begin hearing better give us a call.