Your overall life can be affected by age-related hearing loss. Besides your ability to hear, your professional life, your social life, and even your cognitive clarity can also be affected. The way your brain functions, including your memory and mood, can be significantly affected by hearing loss.
Sometimes, the link between hearing loss and cognition is elusive. People normally don’t relate their memory issues, for instance, with hearing loss even though it’s one of the first symptoms. The unfortunate truth is that hearing loss and memory loss go hand-in-hand.
What’s the link between memory and hearing loss? Well, hearing loss puts a distinctive strain on your brain and that’s, at least to some extent, the connection. Your cognitive abilities will usually improve when you manage your hearing loss.
How memory is impacted by hearing loss
Hearing loss can be difficult to detect. It isn’t unusual for individuals to miss the more discreet and early signs. For these individuals hearing loss might only become noticeable once it has become moderate or severe. The progression of hearing loss is frequently slow over time and that’s in part why it’s initially hard to detect. It’s often easy to ignore symptoms and, basically, raise the volume on your television a little more every few days (or weeks).
Another factor is how good the brain is at compensating for loss of sound. You may not detect that it’s becoming harder to understand what people are saying as a result. The positive thing about this is that your day-to-day life will have fewer interruptions. However, compensating in this way requires substantial brain power. Requiring your brain to execute at this level for long periods can result in:
- Memory loss or forgetfulness
- Unexplained irritability
- Chronic fatigue
We will be able to help you determine whether these symptoms are a result of hearing loss or not. In situations where hearing loss is present, we’ll work with you to establish a treatment plan.
Can hearing loss cause memory problems?
Obviously, your brain can be affected by hearing loss in other ways besides mental exhaustion. Forgetfulness is frequently a prominent presentation. This is particularly true of neglected hearing loss. The cause and effect relationship isn’t entirely understood, but it’s clear that there is a connection between hearing loss and the following issues:
- Increased risk of dementia: People who have neglected hearing loss have been known to have an increased risk of dementia and mental decline. This risk declines considerably when the hearing loss is treated and managed.
- Social isolation: People with untreated hearing loss will frequently begin to separate themselves from other people. You’ll go out less frequently, chat with the cashier at the grocery store less, and so on. Your brain will often alter the way it processes information as a result.
- Increased risk of depression and anxiety: An increase in anxiety and depression as a result of untreated hearing loss is not uncommon according to multiple studies. And once more, when the root hearing loss has been treated, the risk factor drops significantly.
These problems are not unrelated, of course. Social solitude can worsen depression and other mental health problems. And your risk of dementia also increases with social isolation.
Does hearing loss cause cognitive decline?
Your risk of cognitive decline and dementia is increased by untreated hearing loss, and that’s one of the more serious consequences of neglecting your hearing issues. It’s quite clear that management of the symptoms helps substantially and scientists have a number of theories as to why. In other words, treating your hearing loss has been shown to slow cognitive decline and lower your risk of developing dementia later in life.
Dealing with hearing loss induced forgetfulness
The good news is, managing untreated hearing loss, if your forgetfulness is caused by hearing loss, will certainly help. Here are a few things we may 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 situation. By preventing and reducing social isolation, your cognition can improve, lowering your risk of dementia, depression, and other issues.
- Hearing protection: The utilization of hearing protection can prevent further degradation of your hearing and, as a result, help prevent some of the cognitive strain described above.
- Regular screenings: Routine screenings can help you identify problems with your hearing before they become substantial issues. Managing your hearing loss early can prevent cognitive strain.
You don’t have to remain forgetful!
You can recover strength of memory even if hearing loss is currently causing a little forgetfulness. In many cases, mental functions will come back once your brain doesn’t need to strain so hard. When your brain doesn’t need to work as hard to hear, the rest can be really helpful.
Make an appointment with us so that we can help you significantly improve your outlook and decrease your risk of other problems.