Hearing Loss and Dementia Linked in Study

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Hearing Loss and Dementia Linked in Study - 02/14/2011

Release Date: 02/14/2011

Seniors with hearing loss are significantly more likely to develop dementia over time than those who retain their hearing, a study by Johns Hopkins and National Institute on Aging researchers suggests. The findings, the researchers say, could lead to new ways to combat dementia, a condition that affects millions of people worldwide and carries heavy societal burdens.

Although the reason for the link between the two conditions is unknown, the investigators suggest that a common pathology may underlie both or that the strain of decoding sounds over the years may overwhelm the brains of people with hearing loss, leaving them more vulnerable to dementia. They also speculate that hearing loss could lead to dementia by making individuals more socially isolated, a known risk factor for dementia and other cognitive disorders.

Whatever the cause, the scientists report, their finding may offer a starting point for interventions — even as simple as hearing aids — that could delay or prevent dementia by improving patients’ hearing.

“Researchers have looked at what affects hearing loss, but few have looked at how hearing loss affects cognitive brain function,” says study leader Frank Lin, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Otology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “There hasn’t been much crosstalk between otologists and geriatricians, so it’s been unclear whether hearing loss and dementia are related.”

To make the connection, Lin and his colleagues used data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging (BLSA). The BLSA, initiated by the National Institute on Aging in 1958, has tracked various health factors in thousands of men and women over decades.

The new study, published in the February Archives of Neurology, focused on 639 people whose hearing and cognitive abilities were tested as part of the BLSA between 1990 and 1994. While about a quarter of the volunteers had some hearing loss at the start of the study, none had dementia.

These volunteers were then closely followed with repeat examinations every one to two years, and by 2008, 58 of them had developed dementia. The researchers found that study participants with hearing loss at the beginning of the study were significantly more likely to develop dementia by the end. Compared with volunteers with normal hearing, those with mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss had twofold, threefold, and fivefold, respectively, the risk of developing dementia over time. The more hearing loss they had, the higher their likelihood of developing the memory-robbing disease.

Even after the researchers took into account other factors that are associated with risk of dementia, including diabetes, high blood pressure, age, sex and race, Lin explains, hearing loss and dementia were still strongly connected.

“A lot of people ignore hearing loss because it’s such a slow and insidious process as we age,” Lin says. “Even if people feel as if they are not affected, we’re showing that it may well be a more serious problem .”

The research was supported by the intramural research program of the National Institute on Aging.
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I think it is because one get hearing loss and/or dementia is because of old age not because they are linked. If they are linked as they said, then we will find dementia in young deaf kids. I find this silly. What do you think?
 
Maybe it can be linked to hearing lost late in life? But not applying to deaf people who are born that way.

I know that I read a study somewhere linking bi polar disorder with sensory deprivation.
 
Not sure if I am taking this right.

I used to work in 2 different nursing homes in the Alzheimer's & dementia ward. While it seemed that they might have had a hearing loss, it was more due to them just not understanding you because of confusion. These would be the same people that is a person in room 1 dropped a spoon on the floor, they would be able to hear it clear down the hall in room 35. They would also be the people that if you thought had a hearing loss and you spoke up just a little, they would berate you for "yelling" at them.

My mother has dementia, and does not show any signs of hearing loss, just a confusion. You literally have to make sure you have her attention first, then she can hear anything. She seems to be more sensitive to sound and complains that the kids in the backseat of the car are yelling, when in fact they are whispering.

Somehow, I don't see a correlation with dementia and hearing loss, but then again, I could be wrong and have never seen it.
 
I think this explains a whole lot about some people on AD. ;)



(in all seriousness, I find it to be ridiculous)
 
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Lots of things that cause hearing loss can affect the brain, like demyelination of nerves, vascular damage, mutated genes that produce enzymes or proteins, etc. In a hearing loss syndrome, all of the body's systems can be affected. No surprise here.
 
When I was a health aide I had a lot of clients that had some kind of dementia
and they where not HOH and I had clients that lost their hearing when they got older and they did not have dementia.
 
I do believe that I suffered some brain damage due to the "blotched" surgery on both ears, resulting in my deafness (at age 14)....I do read a hell of a lot and try to keep abreast of all the news as much as possible. And yes, I am "forgetful" at times, but don't think I have Demenita just yet....
 
Hearing loss from aging is very different from hearing loss for some other reason. The range of loss is different.

Whether or not a person will get dementia depends on genetics, environment, and mental health status. Dementia is not a part of normal aging.
 
I think the social isolation that leads to feelings of paranoia (not mentioned in this study, but I've seen that elsewhere) could potentially lead to or exacerbate dementia, so I can see how if hearing loss leads to social isolation, you might have an increased risk factor.

I agree with Botts too, that this study is more likely to apply to people who lost their hearing later in life, vs. people born deaf. It would be interesting to know for a fact if that's the case.

I haven't had much experience with dementia in my family, thankfully. Although the women in my family have lived to a ripe old age, and so have my uncles (still have one uncle living, age 92), none of them experienced either dementia or hearing loss.
 
Well, my mother had Alzheimer's Disease and also had hearing loss, but refused to try out wearing hearing aid(s). My sister took care of her for over 7 years. Then my sister had to put her in a nursing home as she was getting worse. It could be that my mother had suffered the both of them as she could felt alone by herself. I don't know what was happening with her in New Mexico while I was and still up here in Canada. She had passed away back in 2006. My sister and I do not want her to lose her memory because this was her whole life. Also we worried that that we might get this from her if we ever become dementia. I just hope we don't.

By the way, my father had a little bit of dementia too but not worse off like my mother. My father was from Minnesota. He also passed away in 2003. I am not sure if he had lose his hearing while having this dementia. :dunno:
 
It would be interesting to read more about this.....certainly possible I would think.
 
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