A new study suggests that wearing a hearing aid may help delay cognitive decline in older adults who are at risk of developing dementia. Previous research has shown a correlation between hearing loss and dementia, but it was unclear whether one caused the other. The recent study conducted a randomized controlled trial to directly compare the effects of wearing and not wearing a hearing aid on cognitive decline.
The study included 977 US adults aged between 70 and 84 with similar levels of hearing loss. Half of the participants were given hearing aids to wear daily, while the rest received general health advice. After three years, there were no differences between the two groups in terms of logic skills, word fluency, memory, and decision-making.
However, when the researchers focused on a subset of participants who were older, had various heart-related risk factors, and had higher rates of diabetes and blood pressure, they found that those who wore hearing aids experienced 48% less cognitive decline over the three years compared to those who did not wear hearing aids.
The findings suggest that wearing a hearing aid may be beneficial in delaying cognitive decline in specific populations at risk of dementia. While further research is needed to confirm these results, the use of hearing aids could provide a relatively simple and inexpensive intervention to address the rising rates of dementia.
Increased awareness of the importance of addressing hearing impairments may encourage more people to seek help and use hearing aids, reducing the average delay of seeking assistance from seven to 10 years and increasing the number of people who could benefit from these devices.
