Did you know that hearing loss is the 3rd most prevalent chronic medical condition among older adults? It is estimated that 21% of adults 48-59 years and 40-50% of adults over the age of 65 years have a measureable hearing impairment and the number rises to 83% of those over age 70. Besides the obvious impairment of hearing spoken communication and environmental sounds, hearing loss has significant consequences on both the cognitive (thinking ability) and neural integrity (structure of the nervous tissue) of the brain.
Hearing loss typically comes on slowly and even though more people have it when they are older, it is not necessarily a part of aging. As many as 12.5 percent of children between ages 6 and 19 years have hearing loss. The typical complaint is increased difficulty in hearing speech in the presence of background noise. This happens when the high pitch sounds in speech are lost. You can hear the person speaking just fine because low frequency sound (vowels and some consonants) are at normal loudness, but the lack of those high pitch consonants due to hearing loss takes away the clarity. When you add in common examples of background noise like the hum of traffic, the babble of overlapping conversations in a crowded restaurant, and situations when the acoustic ‘noise’ consists of two people talking at once, you find you can’t understand what is said without watching the person’s face (lip reading).
Studies show that subtle, often unnoticed effects of even mild hearing impairment may directly cause a decrease in the cognitive (thinking) ability of the brain. While it may be too early to claim that hearing aids would remedy or at least delay the effects of hearing loss in the brain, it is an assumption which seems likely.
Unfortunately, there is ample evidence linking hearing loss to decreases in mental clarity, particularly when listeners are faced with the task of understanding speech that is acoustically or linguistically challenging. More recent studies have gone even further, Frank R. Lin, MD PhD at Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health has found hearing loss is independently associated with poorer cognitive functioning on non-verbal tasks of memory and control of cognitive functions like working memory, reasoning, task flexibility, problem solving, planning and execution. He has also found hearing loss is independently associated with accelerated cognitive decline, the risk of developing dementia, and accelerated rates of brain atrophy. They are beginning research study on how hearing loss is associated with declines in physical functioning, frailty, health care utilization, and occupational status. More research is needed but the link between hearing ability and brain health is clearly a critical issue in public health that will benefit from increased awareness, resources and study. After all, the ears are only the channels for sound; it is the brain that “hears”.
If you or someone you love is struggling with the loss of hearing, contact our offices today at the Hearing & Balance Institute of the Rockies and let us discuss with you how we can not only aid your hearing loss but help you fight off the mental and social effects that hearing loss can have.
No comments:
Post a Comment