We have heard the concerning connections between untreated hearing loss and a host of other health conditions. There is always debate around these conversations about whether the link between hearing loss and say accelerated dementia is causal or otherwise.
One of the tried and true methods to ask this question more deliberately is to reintroduce function, hearing in this case, and observe the effects on the secondary conditions.
A large retrospective cohort study from almost 115,000 individuals, just published in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society, suggests strong positive outcomes when individuals use hearing aids.
By examining longitudinal claims data from a large private payer in the state of Michigan, Mahmoudi et al show that hearing aid use in the first three years of hearing loss diagnosis is linked to later diagnosis of dementia, depression, and injurious falls.
While these data do not themselves establish a causal relationship between hearing loss and these conditions, they certainly highlight the urgency to use hearing aids as soon as possible after the diagnosis of a hearing loss.
Reference
Mahmoudi E, Basu T, Langa K, McKee MM, Zazove P, Alexander N, Kamdar N. (2019) Can Hearing Aids Delay Time to Diagnosis of Dementia, Depression, or Falls in Older Adults? J Amer Ger Soc.
Related Posts
Honoring Our Service Members: Supporting Our Veterans
This Memorial Day, we honor those service members who have died in military service in the United States. The day was originally called Decoration Day, so named for the tradition of decorating graves with wreaths, flowers, and flags commemorating those who have passed on. While the day was widely observed after the Civil War, and…
Exploring New Sounds with the World’s Largest Trees
What does one of the world’s largest lifeforms sound like? That was a question Ari Daniel asked on a recent National Public Radio (NPR) “All Things Considered” episode. Pando is a quaking aspen tree that has spread to cover over 80 football fields in Fishlake National Forest, Utah. While Pando may resemble a forest, what…
Mental Health, Quality of Life, and Communication in Children Diagnosed with Hearing Loss
Based on parent and teacher report, the prevalence of mental health problems is twice to four times higher in children diagnosed with hearing loss when compared to those peers without a hearing loss. Interestingly, children who are Deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/hh) and hard-of-hearing (HH) typically do not rate themselves as having significantly higher mental health…