Hearing aids are not a cure for dementia, but they are an investment that could reduce the costs of dementia care by 8 percent.
Source: Prof Grant Searchfield, newsroom
You may have heard that the number of people with dementia is set to double in the next two decades. You can also assume an ageing population is likely to be hard of hearing, and that our memory and collective cognition will become poorer with age. But could age-related cognitive decline be related to hearing loss? And, if so, could hearing aids slow age-related cognitive decline?
There’s a good chance it would. An increasing number of studies have found a relationship between cognitive ability and hearing loss. A review in the Lancet journal, for instance, indicated that 8 percent of dementia cases could be attributed to hearing loss at mid-life. This percentage may not sound high but the next highest modifiable factor (excluding genetically inherited risks for dementia) was smoking, at 5 percent.
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