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Showing posts with label Hearing loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hearing loss. Show all posts

Monday, January 22, 2018

Hearing loss tied to Alzheimer’s disease

hearing loss tied to Alzheimers disease

As we get older, certain sounds become more difficult to hear. But, doctors say untreated hearing loss could put patients in risk for serious health problems.

“You can lose and additional cubic sonometer of brain tissue a year, if you have untreated hearing loss. That’s why it’s so important to test for it,” says neurologist Dr. Fredrick Shaerf in an interview with Lee Health.

According to experts, advanced hearing loss puts patients at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease.


Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disease that normally starts slowly and deteriorates over time. It is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for about 60-70% of all cases. While it starts out with short-term memory loss, the disease progresses rapidly, rendering the inflicted person unable to perform simple every tasks such as using the phone or tying shoelaces.
  
“There is significant risk of developing a dementia if they have untreated hearing loss; and those risks can be up to five times the risk if you have severe hearing loss, three times moderate, twice mild. So, that’s a significant risk with something that’s treatable,” Dr. Shaerf says.


In 2016, the Better Hearing Institute highlighted the importance of hearing health to general cognitive function, due to a growing body of study linking untreated hearing loss to memory loss and decreased cognitive function.

Arthur Wingfield, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience at the Brandeis University, has been studying intellectual aging and the association between memory and hearing keenness for several years. He says that untreated hearing loss makes the person to put more effort while listening, which can lead to elevated stress and poorer results in memory tests.

hearing loss tied to Alzheimers disease
Dr. Shaerf says that we don’t realize we have a hearing loss.
Hearing loss can be treated with things like hearing aids. About one-third of people who are 65 years or old, have hearing loss, but about 15 percent wear hearing aids.

“Well, it seems to be a risk because the information is not getting in. And therefore, in the speech and language centers, it’s not sort of not getting the stimulation, and we know when nerves don’t get stimulated, they shrink or atrophy,” Dr. Shaerf says.


He recommends that patients have their hearing and cognition tests regularly.

“We also know that we don’t realize we have a hearing loss. And most of us who develop it lose some of the high-pitched tones so we hear the television when it’s up loud enough; we don’t think that there’s a problem, when there really is,” says Dr. Shaerf.

Recognizing and treating hearing loss early can prevent hearing loss problems, including the development of Alzheimer’s disease.