It’s a hard fact to confront but as we age, we become more vulnerable to cognitive disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. This September, World Alzheimer’s Month seeks to raise awareness and education around dementia as science continues to search for a cure.
What many people don’t realize is that your hearing can have a big impact on your cognitive health. Healthy hearing contributes to mental balance, while managing untreated hearing loss strains our cognitive capacities. In fact, untreated hearing loss makes a person 1.3 times as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease as a person with healthy hearing.
Know the Signs of Alzheimer’s
It’s important to be able to recognize the signs of cognitive problems. While there is no known cure for dementia and Alzheimer’s, medical treatment exists to improve mental functioning and forestall the onset of the disease. Research currently underway may hold the key to stopping Alzheimer’s in its tracks.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, a condition marked by cognitive decline. Signs of dementia include memory problems, disorientation, language and comprehension difficulty and problems performing familiar tasks. The symptoms also include increased social isolation, depression and changes in mood and demeanor. People affected by dementia often have problems discerning spatial relationships and a tendency to misplace things frequently. They may also have a markedly reduced ability to exhibit good judgement, which makes them vulnerable to scams and exploitation.
If you or a loved one is demonstrating the signs of dementia, it’s important to seek medical help. Professionals can help make connections to new treatment options and resources for people living with dementia.
Health Awareness
Several conditions have been shown to increase a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Smoking, especially a long-term smoking habit, has been shown to correlate to increased risk. A lack of exercise and physical activity can also lead to cognitive disruption. An educational history that terminates before high school has a long-term effect of decreasing their late-in-life cognitive functioning. Midlife obesity and hypertension can both foreshadow dementia, as can developing late-life depression. Social isolation has been shown to play a part in the likelihood a person will develop Alzheimer’s, as does diabetes.
Many people are surprised that untreated hearing loss is also a dementia risk factor. In fact, our auditory system is deeply connected to our cognitive patterns and hearing constantly plays a role in how we distribute our mental energy.
How Healthy Hearing Helps
When we experience hearing loss, it has an effect on our overall health. In terms of our cognitive functioning, this is felt in the dependence of the auditory system upon the brain.
Let’s start by looking at how hearing loss originates. Most permanent hearing loss is caused by damage to the sensory hair cells in the inner ear. These tiny hair cells pick up the vibrations that sound waves cause in the air and they generate an electric impulse that transmits these sound signals to the brain. When hair cells are damaged, they cannot be fixed and they cannot be replaced, so damaged hair cells create small but permanent gaps in how we hear. Significant hearing loss occurs when so many hair cells are no longer functioning, it challenges our ability to hear a full range of sounds.
When we lose our hair cells, we lose incoming sound information. Instead of receiving sound signals that are complete and easy to parse, the brain has to fill in missing gaps in the incoming information. Drawing the meaning from sound becomes increasingly difficult, the less sound waves we are able to pick up. To compensate for this, our brains redistribute their cognitive duties, turning more focus and attention towards hearing.
While more cognitive energy is spent on hearing, less is available for other mental tasks. Well-worn neural pathways can atrophy when activity is redistributed. The cognitive strain of hearing can create fatigue and physical exhaustion. This mental disruption can also cause us to shortchange other areas of cognition, such as coordination, leading to an increased risk of accidental injury. All these factors contribute to cognitive damage and are what connect hearing loss to cognitive decline and dementia.
Most hearing loss is permanent, but there is good news: treating hearing loss can help curtail the cognitive impact of hearing loss. Using hearing aids and assistive devices to recover lost hearing dramatically reduces mental stress and strain around hearing. Better still, the earlier you treat hearing loss the easier it is for your brain to adapt to hearing assistance.
Are you facing hearing challenges? Don’t wait for it to get worse – it’s time to set up an appointment with HearCare in Rhode Island. At HearCare, we know your hearing has repercussions for your total health and we help our customers find life-long healthy hearing they can depend on.