Let’s be clear: there are a number of ways that you can preserve your mental acuity and ward off disorders such as cognitive decline, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Staying social is one of the most essential while participating in the workforce seems to be another. Whichever methods are used to combat cognitive decline, however, keeping your hearing strong and using hearing aids if you need them will be immensely helpful.
These disorders, according to many studies, are frequently directly connected to hearing loss. What follows is a look at why hearing loss can cause serious issues with your mental health and how solutions like hearing aids can help you keep your brain running at a higher level for a longer period of time.
The Relationship Between Hearing Loss And Cognitive Decline
The link between hearing loss and cognitive decline has been analyzed several times over the years by scientists at Johns Hopkins. The results of each study revealed the same story: people with hearing loss experienced 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 individuals who have diminished hearing.
Though dementia isn’t directly caused by hearing loss there is certainly a link. When you can’t effectively process sound your brain has to work harder according to leading theories. That means that tasks such as memory and cognition, which demand more energy, can’t function at full capacity because your brain has to use so much of that energy on more simple tasks.
Hearing loss can also have a significant affect on your mental health. Research has shown that hearing loss is connected to anxiety, depression, and might even influence schizophrenia. All of these disorders also produce cognitive decline – as mentioned above, one of the optimum ways to preserve your mental sharpness is to stay socially active. In many examples, hearing loss causes individuals to feel self-conscious around others, which means they’ll turn to seclusion instead. The mental problems listed above are typically the result of the lack of human interaction and can inevitably lead to significant cognitive decline.
How a Hearing Aid Can Help You Keep Your Resolution
One of the best resources we have to fight dementia and other cognitive conditions like Alzheimer’s is hearing aids. The problem is that only one in seven of the millions of people 50 or older who deal with hearing loss actually wear a hearing aid. It may be a stigma or a previous negative experience that keeps people using hearing aids, but in fact, hearing aids have been shown to help people protect their cognitive function by helping them hear better.
There are situations where specific sounds will need to be relearned because they’ve been forgotten after prolonged hearing damage. It’s essential to help your brain get back to processing more important tasks and hearing aids can do just that by stopping this problem in the first place and helping you relearn any sounds the brain has forgotten.
Get in touch with us today to learn what options are available to help you start hearing better in this decade and beyond.
