A few months ago this article was published on Newsroom by a colleague of ours, Professor Grant Searchfield. In his article Grant neatly summarises a growing area of research in audiology: understanding the association between untreated hearing loss on cognition and dementia. It’s interesting to know that untreated mid-life hearing loss is the single biggest modifiable factor, excluding genetically inherited risks, for dementia. Smoking was the next most significant. And it’s even more interesting to learn that people with normal hearing or using hearing aids have better cognition than those with hearing loss and not using hearing aids.
Of course this does not mean that hearing aids will prevent dementia. But there is good evidence to indicate that regular use of hearing aids, selected and well-fitted by an audiologist, have the potential to reduce the impacts of dementia.
Read the article here.