Let’s be clear: there are a few ways that you can maintain your mental acuity and fend off disorders like dementia, cognitive decline, and Alzheimer’s disease. Staying socially active is one of the most important while engaging in the workforce seems to be another. No matter the method, though, managing hearing loss by using hearing aids makes these activities much easier and contributes in its own way to battling cognitive issues.
These disorders, according to many studies, are often directly connected to hearing loss. The following is a look at why hearing loss can lead to serious problems with your mental health and how strategies like hearing aids can help you keep your brain working at a higher level for a longer period of time.
The Connection Between Hearing Loss And Cognitive Decline
The connection between hearing loss and cognitive decline has been analyzed numerous times over the years by researchers at Johns Hopkins. The same story was told by each study: cognitive decline was more common with individuals who suffer from hearing loss. One study revealed, in fact, that there was a 24% higher instance of Alzheimer’s in people who have diminished hearing.
Even though dementia isn’t specifically caused by hearing loss there is definitely a link. The leading theories suggest that your brain has to work overtime when you can’t effectively process sounds. That means your brain is using more valuable energy on fairly simple tasks, leaving a lot less of that energy for more advanced processes such as cognitive function and memory.
Hearing loss can also have a serious affect on your mental health. Anxiety, depression, and social isolation have all been linked to hearing loss and there could even be a connection with schizophrenia. Remaining socially engaged, as mentioned, is the best way to safeguard your mental health and preserve your cognitive clarity. In many instances, hearing loss causes individuals to feel self-conscious out in public, which means they’ll turn to isolation instead. The lack of human interaction can lead to the other mental health problems mentioned above and potentially lead to cognitive impairments.
How a Hearing Aid Can Help You Safeguard Your Mental Faculties
Hearing aids are perhaps one of the best tools we have to preserve mental sharpness and fight disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The issue is that only one in seven of the millions of people 50 or older who deal with hearing impairment actually use a hearing aid. People may steer clear of hearing aids because they’ve had a bad experience in the past or perhaps they hold some kind of stigma, but in fact, hearing aids have been proven to help people maintain their cognitive function by helping them hear better.
When your hearing is damaged for a prolonged amount of time, the brain may forget how to recognize some common sounds and will have to learn them all over again. A hearing aid can either prevent that scenario from occurring in the first place or help you relearn those sounds, which will allow your brain to focus on other, more important tasks.
Get in touch with us right away to find out what options are available to help you begin hearing better in this decade and beyond.