By Adriana Villalobos, M.A. CCC-A
There are some well known factors that contribute to reduced cognitive abilities as we age. Some of these are reduced speed of processing, decreased working memory, and attention difficulties due to noise and distraction. Some loss of cognitive function is due to reduced brain plasticity or less active neural responses. Auditory deprivation or unaided hearing loss may also contribute to reduced cognitive function.
Our ears are merely the entry point for sound to enter the neural pathways which lead to the brain. The brain performs the function of analyzing and understanding the auditory information. The auditory comprehension is therefore only as good as the information coming into the brain.
As an example, if I say, “How’s it going today?” but the person with the hearing loss hears “Owl is going to play”, that person will be understanding the situation incorrectly. That person’s brain did not process the information correctly because it was “heard” incorrectly. We’ve all heard jokes like this example above, but when it happens to you, it’s more than a joking matter.
Research supports the idea that wearing hearing aids if you have hearing loss with help improve your cognitive abilities. Here are three research studies and their findings.
• June of 2016 a study from the University of Texas at El Paso was published in the American Journal of Audiology. It found that hearing aids improve brain function in people with hearing loss. According to lead researcher Dr. Jamie Desjardins, assistant professor of speech language pathology,”… hearing aids can not only improve one’s ability to hear, but also restore lost brain function,” she says.
• A 2018 study at the University of Maryland Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences monitored a group of first-time hearing aid users with mild-to-moderate hearing loss over a period of six months. At the end of the six months, participants showed improved memory, improved neural speech processing, and greater ease of listening because of the hearing aid use.
• The University of Melbourne 2020. Researchers tested the use of hearing aids in almost 100 adults aged 62-82 years with hearing loss. “A significant improvement in cognitive function across the whole group was observed for executive function (GML), equivalent to 13.2% of the baseline mean score, that would not generally be expected in older adults”. After 18 months of hearing aid use, self-reported overall quality of life was significantly improved.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have done studies looking at how hearing loss may influence cognitive decline. In each case, they met with seniors over several years and tracked which ones developed Alzheimer’s and how quickly the disease progressed. In each study, the people with hearing loss had higher rates of dementia.
In one study, people with hearing loss were 24% more likely to have Alzheimer’s. In another, they found that the worse the hearing loss was, the more likely the person was to develop dementia. These studies don’t suggest that hearing loss itself causes dementia, but it does show that there’s a link between the two. The researchers have a few theories as to why that might be. Without elaborating, these are brain function, cognitive load and social isolation.
Why Choose Adriana?
Adriana Villalobos, M.A. CCC-A, has been an Audiologist in Naples since 1999. Adriana is a 1991 graduate of the University of Texas and winner of the Sertoma Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Throughout her more than 30 years of experience as an Audiologist, Adriana has worked in an array of environments, including completing her clinical fellowship at Houston Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic in Houston, Texas. Adriana’s specialties include fitting and dispensing services, as well as Assistive Listening Device technology. These specialties allow her to create individualized solutions for her patients in order to meet their unique hearing needs. Adriana is a Bilingual Spanish Speaker and also volunteers her time to assist with the large Spanish speaking community in need in Southwest Florida.
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