Age-associated hearing loss can have broad impacts across your overall life. Not only is your ability to hear affected, but also your social life, your professional networks, and even your cognitive abilities. Over time, hearing loss can profoundly impact how your brain works in ways that directly impact your mood, your memory, and more.
The connection between cognition and hearing loss isn’t always obvious. For instance, one of the earliest symptoms of hearing loss could be forgetfulness, but people rarely think that their memory problems are linked to a loss of hearing. The unfortunate truth is that hearing loss and memory loss go hand-in-hand.
What does loss of hearing have to do with memory? Well, hearing loss puts a unique strain on your brain and that’s, at least in part, the link. Often, when your hearing loss symptoms are successfully managed, your mental abilities will improve.
How hearing loss effects memory
Detecting hearing loss can often be challenging. Frequently, people miss the early warning signs and more discreet symptoms. For these people hearing loss may only become obvious once it has become moderate or severe. The advancement of hearing loss is often gradual over time and that’s in part why it’s initially hard to detect. It’s often easy to ignore symptoms and, essentially, turn up the volume on your television a little more every few days (or weeks).
In addition, the human brain is quite good at compensating for intermittent loss of sounds. Consequently, you might not notice that people are more difficult to understand. The positive thing about this is that your day-to-day life will have fewer disruptions. However, compensating in this way requires significant brain power. Requiring your brain to work at this level for long durations can result in:
- Chronic fatigue
- Unexplained irritability
- Memory loss or forgetfulness
We will be able to help you figure out whether these symptoms are a result of hearing loss or not. If it’s determined that you’re dealing with hearing loss, we can help you establish the best treatment plan.
Can hearing loss result in memory issues?
Obviously, your brain can be impacted by hearing loss in other ways besides fatigue. Forgetfulness is often a notable presentation. When hearing loss has gone untreated, this is especially true. Even though scientists aren’t entirely clear as to the cause and effect relationship, hearing loss has been solidly linked to the following problems.:
- Social isolation: It isn’t unusual for individuals to withdraw from social contact when they have untreated hearing loss. You’ll go out less frequently, chat with the cashier at the grocery store less, and so on. Your brain will often change the way it processes information as a result.
- Increased risk of dementia: The danger of dementia and other forms of mental decline is greater for individuals with neglected hearing loss. When the hearing loss is effectively treated, the risk goes down significantly.
- Increased risk of depression and anxiety: Research has shown that untreated hearing loss can also lead to increases in both depression and anxiety over time. Again, this risk has been shown to drop when the root hearing loss is successfully managed.
All of these problems are obviously intertwined. Mental health problems, including depression, can be worsened by social solitude. Similarly, that type of isolation can also increase your risk of developing dementia.
Does hearing loss cause cognitive decline?
Your risk of cognitive decline and dementia is increased by neglected hearing loss, and that’s one of the more serious consequences of neglecting your hearing issues. It’s quite clear that management of the symptoms helps significantly and scientists have a few theories as to why. In other words, managing your hearing loss has been shown to slow down cognitive decline and lower your risk of developing dementia down the road.
Dealing with hearing loss induced forgetfulness
If your fatigue and memory loss are caused by untreated hearing loss, the good news is that treating your hearing loss symptoms can definitely have a positive effect. In cases where hearing loss is detected, we might suggest the following:
- Hearing protection: Using hearing protection can counter additional degradation of your hearing and, as a result, help prevent some of the cognitive strain outlined above.
- The use of hearing aids: You will hear better with the use of a hearing aid. Your social life can be improved and your cognitive abilities will have less strain by using hearing aids. By avoiding and decreasing social isolation, your cognition can improve, lowering your risk of dementia, depression, and other issues.
- Regular screenings: Before any problems start to happen, routine screenings can identify them. Managing your hearing loss early can prevent mental strain.
You don’t have to stay forgetful!
If hearing loss is causing you to be a little forgetful, it’s worthwhile to highlight that it doesn’t need to stay that way. Once the strain on your brain is relieved, your cognitive function, in many cases, will sharpen. When your brain doesn’t have to work as hard to hear, the rest can be very helpful.
Making an appointment with us can greatly improve your outlook and decrease your risk for other problems. Contact us today!