Make no mistake: Keeping your mind clear and preventing cognitive conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s can be accomplished in a number of ways. Staying social is one of the most significant while engaging in the workforce seems to be another. Regardless of the method, though, managing hearing loss by using hearing aids makes these activities a lot easier and contributes in its own way to combating cognitive issues.
These disorders, according to numerous studies, are often directly linked to hearing loss. The following is a look at why hearing loss can lead to extreme issues with your mental health and how solutions like hearing aids can help you keep your brain working at a higher level for a longer period of time.
How Hearing Loss Contributes to Cognitive Decline
The connection 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: individuals with hearing loss experienced dementia and cognitive decline in higher rates than those without. Actually, one study demonstrated that people with hearing loss were 24% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than people with healthy hearing.
Even though dementia isn’t directly caused by hearing loss there is definitely a link. When you can’t properly process sound your brain has to work harder according to leading theories. 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 simple tasks.
Your mental health can also be seriously affected by hearing loss. Anxiety, depression, and social isolation have all been linked to hearing loss and there could even be a connection with schizophrenia. All of these disorders also lead to cognitive decline – as noted above, one of the best ways to preserve your mental acuity is to remain socially active. Frequently, people who have hearing loss will turn to self isolation because they feel self conscious around other people. The lack of human contact can lead to the other mental health issues mentioned above and eventually lead to cognitive impairments.
How a Hearing Aid Can Help You Keep Your Resolution
One of the best tools we have to combat dementia and other cognition disorders like Alzheimer’s is hearing aids. Sadly, most people who need hearing aids don’t use them. It may be a stigma or a previous negative experience that keeps people from hearing aids, but in fact, hearing aids have been proven to help people preserve their cognitive function by helping them hear better.
There are situations where specific sounds will have to be relearned because they’ve been forgotten after prolonged hearing damage. A hearing aid can either prevent that scenario from happening in the first place or assist you in relearning those sounds, which will enable your brain to focus on other, more important tasks.
Contact us right away to find out what options are available to help you start hearing better in this decade and beyond.
