The Link Between Hearing Loss and Dementia
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 พ.ย. 2018
- The Link Between Hearing Loss and Dementia. Dr. Cliff Olson, Audiologist and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Anthem Arizona, discusses the link between hearing loss and dementia.
Website: www.DrCliffAuD.com
Clinic Website: www.AppliedHearingAZ.com
Globally, about 47 million people were living with dementia in 2015, and this number is projected to triple by 2050.
Up until The Lancet Commission was tasked with identifying preventable risk factors, interventions, and care of dementia, one of the more popular studies that highlighted hearing loss and its link to dementia was a paper by Dr. Frank Lin.
Dr. Lin and his colleagues indicated "In this study we found that hearing loss was independently associated with incident all-cause dementia after adjustment for sex, age, race, education, diabetes, smoking, and hypertension, and our findings were robust to multiple sensitivity analyses.”
This means that the link between Hearing Loss and Dementia was not due to any other factors other than Hearing Loss itself. Ultimately, they found a 200% increased likelihood of dementia with a mild hearing loss, 300% with a moderate hearing loss, and 500% with a severe hearing loss.
In 2017, the Lancet Commission on dementia was convened to review the best available evidence and produce recommendations on how to manage or prevent the dementia epidemic.
In their review of research involving dementia, they identified 9 potentially modifiable risk factors of dementia.
Starting at birth, genetics can play a role in your risk of dementia. if you have the APOE 4 Allele then you are at a higher risk. This is currently the only non-modifiable risk-factor in this study and contributes to 7% of your overall risk of Dementia.
As you move to early life, less education is a factor at 8% increased risk of dementia.
When we get to Midlife, you can see that Hearing loss contributes 9% to the risk of dementia. This happens to be the single highest potentially modifiable risk factor dementia.
As you move into late life, you have other risk factors like Depression, and Social Isolation, which also happen to be well documented side effects of untreated hearing loss, and you could make the argument that if you add these percentages together, Untreated hearing loss would account for 15% of the increased risk of dementia.
In total, If all of these risk factors were eliminated, the risk of dementia could decrease by up to 35%.
Furthermore, they indicated that Age 55 was the youngest average age in which the presence of hearing loss was shown to increase dementia risk.
Does this mean that if you treat your hearing loss that you won’t get dementia? NO
Does this meant that if you don’t treat your hearing loss that you will get dementia? NO
What it does mean is that with all the information we have on hearing loss and dementia today, the best recommendation is treat your hearing loss.
So whether you prevent hearing loss by using hearing protection, or treat your hearing loss with hearing aids or surgery, not treating your hearing loss is just plain risky!
Dr. Cliff
Very interesting. My mother had dementia. Before she was diagnosed ( probably 10 years) I noticed she had hearing aids. This was in the the mid 1980s. She almost never wore them, complaining the sound was to confusing in loud situations. She died in 2004 at age 83. I now have hearing aids (age 65) and am glad that technology has made the hearing aids better. Your video hit close to home. I hope people watch this film. Thanks for your channel.
Hi, I am working on formula of medicine tradition I will get it done soon it will cure hearing loss without any doubt, my question is If it gives good results, will you admit the medicine? and I challenge you to test in animals & human beings wherever & I am serious and I am ready to prove that thanks.
Dr. Cliff, I can see how this could contribute to dementia. In my case I could hear people talking, but I couldn't make out the words. Then I would spend a few seconds trying to guess what had been said - and usually come up with the wrong answer. That led to staying away from people, which is not helpful for an active mind.
After being fitted with my new Signia Pure Primax NX7 hearing aids, I am comfortable in groups again. And that keeps my mind working.
This is so important to me that I keep my Signia Pure Binax 7BX hearing aids programmed as a backup!
Thanks for all you do for us!
Hi, I am working on formula of medicine tradition I will get it done soon it will cure hearing loss without any doubt, my question is If it gives good results, will you admit the medicine? and I challenge you to test in animals & human beings wherever & I am serious and I am ready to prove that thanks.
@@explorewithme9811 How did this turn out?
Great info! Clearly provided!
I am in my early 60s and have moderate hearing loss at 4KHz, severe above 6KHz (likely from my younger motorcycling years). I often can't hear birds that friends near me can. I also noticed I have more difficulties having a 1 on 1 conversation in a noisy environment (a date in a restaurant for example). Since high frequency sounds (>4KHz) are more directional than low frequency sounds, our brain uses those high frequencies to separate sounds coming from different directions, allowing us to focus our hearing on the person in front of us. That ability to focus hearing is lost if there is hearing loss in those high frequency sounds. Consequently, the area of the brain tasked with processing audio information sees less activity not just from the loss of bandwidth, but also for the loss of the ability to separate sounds from different sources. At least that is my understanding. I experienced frustration being able to hear my partner at the restaurant, but not been able to extract her words from the background noise, therefore not clearly understanding her. Noise in general makes me more irritable. Once I took an audiogram and realized I had lost the upper frequencies, it suddenly made sense. I am considering getting hearing aid at 62...
wow. my dad has had tinnitus and hearing problems since his 60s at least. he is now 89 an suffers from vascular dementia and cannot live alone anymore. i dread this dementia as my dad has it and his father did. i shall certainly take to heart this piece of advice. luckily i cannot detect any hearing loss nor do i have tinnitus at this time.
Thanks Doctor Cliff. I am considering hearing aids and I appreciate these videos you are producing. You are doing a great service to the non treated hearing impaired community. Keep it up.
Thanks George!
Great information and I liked the chart!
I’m glad I have been wearing hearing aids since 2004 and I am now 72.
Thanks man vary nice video
Thanks Arnob. Thanks for joining the Premiere of the video!
Thank you very much...!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi, I am working on formula of medicine tradition I will get it done soon it will cure hearing loss without any doubt, my question is If it gives good results, will you admit the medicine? and I challenge you to test in animals & human beings wherever & I am serious and I am ready to prove that thanks.
I hate hearing loss
To me it makes sense that if you have hearing loss it would make dementia worse, not so much that hearing loss causes dementia.
why most Toronto clinics rush to sell you the hearing loss. is it very hard to maintain the business
My job safety requirement is hearing protection . 8 hours a day I have a type hearing loss due to ear plugs . I live near a loud street noise area and wear earplugs when sleeping . That’s about 15 hours a day where I have intended hearing loss . Now compare earplugs decreases of hearing with loss of hearing .
Could older persons doing less mental exercise’s cause of dementia ?
How does the study account for those who were born with a hearing loss or acquired early in life? Do they have the same increased risk? It seems that the study focused primarily on hearing loss later in life.
Interesting question. Looks like there is no research on this yet. I'd also be interested whether there is a link between dementia and introvertion/extrovertion.
Hi, I am working on formula of medicine tradition I will get it done soon it will cure hearing loss without any doubt, my question is If it gives good results, will you admit the medicine? and I challenge you to test in animals & human beings wherever & I am serious and I am ready to prove that thanks.
I’m scared that there won’t be a hearing aid that meet my severe high frequency loss. My low and middle frequencies are normal so conversation is not a problem. My right ear is perfect. Cause of these circumstances, other technology like CI won’t be suitable for me.
I am very glad to have excellent treatment for my hearing loss, but have they actually shown that dementia is reduced or delayed by wearing hearing devices? Thx
PS Great content. Relevant and very well done as always 👍
adco59 No, I think Dr Cliff overstates conclusions a bit at the end. Perhaps not intentionally. At this time there is little evidence that treating hearing loss will protect against dementia. All the work is still just correlative, so it could still be the case that whatever causes dementia also causes hearing loss rather than the reverse.
I very clearly stated that hearing treatment will not guarantee that you won't get dementia. However, researchers indicated that Hearing Loss was independently associated with dementia after controlling for other factors. So at the very least, we know that this correlation is not due to a hidden variable of Age, Gender, etc. Could there be another hidden variable that correlates with Hearing Loss that causes dementia? Yes. However, treating hearing loss is the best recommendation we currently have for modifying the risk factor for dementia, and should remain until research uncovers another variable (if it exists). Remember, the link between smoking and lung cancer is also correlative.
Doctor Cliff, AuD :) that’s not altogether true. We have direct evidence in animal studies that tobacco plays a causal role in cancer. We also have some understanding of the mechanisms in play.
Animal studies of a causal link between hearing loss and dementia would be more difficult. An animal model of dementia is more complicated than an animal simply having cancer, and we don’t know what the mechanism by which hearing loss would cause dementia IS (social isolation? Sensory deprivation?) For what it is worth, we do know that knock out mouse models of Alzheimer’s have both cochlear hearing loss and plaques/tangles in the auditory cortex. That’s a very specific model however and probably not generalizable.
In any case, treating hearing loss is important, and the link between dementia and hearing loss is relevant. I’m just sensitive to it being used, in some places (not here), as a sales scare tactic.
The literature isn't very encouraging concerning the capability of hearing aids to ward off dementia -- see www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4730911/. However, that's just one study. The study did find that hearing aid users had better physical health... perhaps because they tend to be health seekers.
Hi, I am working on formula of medicine tradition I will get it done soon it will cure hearing loss without any doubt, my question is If it gives good results, will you admit the medicine? and I challenge you to test in animals & human beings wherever & I am serious and I am ready to prove that thanks.
I can only hear with my left ear, so my hearing loss is high or severe? Or it didn't affect me?
Hi, I am working on formula of medicine tradition I will get it done soon it will cure hearing loss without any doubt, my question is If it gives good results, will you admit the medicine? and I challenge you to test in animals & human beings wherever & I am serious and I am ready to prove that thanks.
I am totally deaf in my tight ear due to mumps. Does this type of loss contribute to dementia?
My Mom shows signs of dementia. Her mother suffered from it severely before her death. My Mom went to a free lunch seminar where her hearing was tested, and she was told about this link. She is freaked out and trying to come up with thousands of dollars for this "limited time deal". As a nurse, this seems like a complete scam.
Where can one find that graph ?
The Lancet is a magazine for health care workers. Maybe you can find it online or medical library.
If dementia is present, can hearing loss treatment help reduce its affects? Thanks
effects not affects
can treatment of hearing issues reduce current dementia symptoms???
That's the scam part of this video. As people age there is a portion that get dementia regardless of whether or not they have hearing loss. Just stay connected with you doctors and get treatment as needed and monitored for problems and enjoy life.
Man you talk fast. Being hard of hearing, it's a lot of work to keep up with you. Thank God for pause.
Hey if you struggle, youtube has an adjustable playback speed. So you can slow down speech in videos if you like
The chart you showed indicated that lack of education led to dementia by an 8% risk. From that chart, I figure that because patients have trouble learning from people speaking to them, they end up with the same leading factor happening to them, (lack of education).
What is the solution to these patients? Maybe seeking education in other ways? Say that the patients don't have any way to get hearing aids. Maybe more reading can help. The patients must get lonely, so that could become a factor (loneliness according to James Eubanks).
The lack of education factor was only identified in early life and was unrelated to hearing loss. There are many ways to learn other than audio.
As informative as this is, what about those whose hearing is heightened?
Ear plugs.
I have hearing aids to slow the progression of dementia
I LEARNED ABOUT DEMENTIA DURING MY COLLEGE DAYS. DEMENTIA IS A SYNDROME CHARACTERIZED BY LOSS OF INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES TO SUCH AN EXTENT THAT SOCIAL AND OCCUPATIONAL FUNCTIONING ARE NEGATIVELY AFFECTED; INVOLVES MEMORY, JUDGEMENT, ABSTRACT THOUGHT, AND CHANGES IN PERSONALITY. OFTEN, THE DISORDERS ARE PROGRESSIVE AND FOLLOW AN IRREVERSIBLE COURSE IN WHICH THE DAMAGE REMAINS PERMANENT.
Why do you talk so fast? Why would some one with mild dementia and hearing loss be able to follow you?
I promise that I really try to speak clearly and in a way that doesn't sound condescending to my viewers. I do realize that sometimes I can get going too fast for some individuals, and for that, I apologize.
Adjust the speed using youtube’s playback speed function
On youtube tap the top right 3 dots then school down to play back speed and select a slower speed . Different on desk top site but works the same . You can always pause make notes then continue .
Sounds like BS 🤷🏼♂️
Please explain.