Your entire life can be impacted by age-related hearing loss. Not only is your ability to hear impacted, but also your social life, your professional networks, and even your cognitive abilities. The way your brain works, including your mood and memory, can be substantially affected by hearing loss.
Sometimes, the relationship between hearing loss and cognition is elusive. People usually don’t relate their memory issues, for instance, with hearing loss even though it’s one of the first symptoms. Unfortunately, the reality is that memory loss and hearing loss are closely linked.
What does loss of hearing have to do with memory? Well, hearing loss puts a unique strain on your brain and that’s, at least in part, the link. Your mental abilities will usually improve when you manage your hearing loss.
How hearing loss impacts memory
Hearing loss can be hard to notice. Frequently, people fail to notice the early warning signs and more subtle symptoms. For these individuals hearing loss may only become obvious once it has become moderate or severe. In part, that’s because hearing loss tends to develop quite slowly. It’s often easy to disregard symptoms and, essentially, raise the volume on your television a little more every few days (or weeks).
Additionally, the human brain is very good at compensating for intermittent loss of sounds. As a result, you may not notice that people are harder to understand. The positive thing about this is that your day-to-day life will have fewer disruptions. However, compensating in this way requires significant brain power. Here are a few consequences of asking your brain to do this over long time periods.:
- Chronic fatigue
- Memory loss or forgetfulness
- Unexplained irritability
We will be able to help you figure out whether these symptoms are due to hearing loss or not. If it’s determined that you are dealing with hearing loss, we can help you formulate the best treatment plan.
Can memory issues be the result of hearing loss?
Obviously, your brain can be affected by hearing loss in other ways besides mental exhaustion. Forgetfulness is frequently a notable presentation. When hearing loss has gone untreated, this is especially true. Though scientists aren’t perfectly clear as to the cause and effect connection, hearing loss has been solidly connected to the following issues.:
- Social isolation: People with neglected hearing loss will frequently begin to separate themselves from others. They will often avoid conversations and will do things like going to self-checkout rather than talking to a cashier. Your brain will often alter the way it processes information as a result.
- Increased risk of depression and anxiety: Studies have demonstrated that untreated hearing loss can also cause increases in both depression and anxiety over time. And once more, when the underlying hearing loss has been treated, the risk factor drops substantially.
- Increased risk of dementia: People with neglected hearing loss have been known to have an increased danger of dementia and mental decline. When the hearing loss is effectively managed, the risk goes down significantly.
These issues are not unrelated, of course. Mental health problems, including depression, can be intensified by social isolation. And your risk of dementia also goes up with social solitude.
Does hearing loss cause cognitive decline?
One of the more extreme impacts of untreated hearing loss is a marked increase in your risk of mental decline and dementia. Scientists have some theories about why this might be, but what’s clear is that management of symptoms helps substantially. In other words, managing your hearing loss has been shown to reduce cognitive decline and lower your risk of developing dementia down the road.
Dealing with hearing loss induced forgetfulness
The good news is, managing neglected hearing loss, if your forgetfulness is a result of hearing loss, will definitely help. Here are a few things we might suggest if hearing loss is detected:
- The use of hearing aids: Using a hearing aid can help you hear better. This can lead to less strain on your mental abilities and an improvement in your social scenario. By avoiding and reducing social isolation, your cognition can improve, decreasing your risk of dementia, depression, and other problems.
- Regular screenings: Before any issues begin to happen, regular screenings can identify them. Mental strain can be avoided with early treatment.
- Hearing protection: The utilization of hearing protection can prevent additional degradation of your hearing and, as a result, help prevent some of the cognitive strain described above.
You can improve your memory
You can recover strength of memory even if hearing loss is presently causing a little forgetfulness. Once the strain on your brain is alleviated, your mental function, in many cases, will sharpen. When your brain doesn’t need to work as hard to hear, the rest can be really helpful.
Scheduling an appointment with us can significantly improve your outlook and reduce your risk for other issues. Call us today!