Your overall life can be affected by age-related hearing loss. Besides your ability to hear, your professional life, your social life, and even your mental clarity can also be impacted. Over time, hearing loss can intensely impact how your brain works in ways that directly impact your mood, your memory, and more.
The link between cognition and hearing loss isn’t always evident. For instance, one of the earliest symptoms of hearing loss could be forgetfulness, but people rarely think that their memory issues are associated with a loss of hearing. The unfortunate truth is that hearing loss and memory loss go hand-in-hand.
What’s the connection between memory and hearing loss? 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 effectively managed, your cognitive abilities will improve.
How hearing loss impacts memory
Detecting hearing loss can frequently be challenging. It’s not unusual for individuals to miss the more discreet and early signs. Hearing loss may only be detected, for individuals in this category, when it becomes more extreme. The advancement of hearing loss is often slow over time and that’s partly why it’s initially hard to detect. It’s often easy to ignore symptoms and, basically, 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. You might not detect that it’s becoming harder to understand what people are saying as a result. This is advantageous in that you will probably experience fewer interruptions to your daily life. But it takes a significant amount of brain power to compensate like this. Requiring your brain to execute at this level for long periods can lead to:
- Unexplained irritability
- Memory loss or forgetfulness
- Chronic fatigue
If you’re noticing these symptoms, we’ll be able to tell you whether the root cause is hearing loss or not. If it’s established that you are dealing with hearing loss, we can help you develop the best treatment plan.
Can hearing loss lead to memory issues?
Obviously, your brain can be impacted by hearing loss in other ways besides mental exhaustion. Forgetfulness is frequently a notable presentation. This is particularly true of neglected hearing loss. Even though scientists aren’t entirely clear as to the cause and effect connection, hearing loss has been strongly connected to the following issues.:
- Social isolation: People with neglected hearing loss will frequently begin to isolate themselves from other people. They will often avoid conversations and will do things like using self-checkout rather than talking to a cashier. Over time, this kind of solitude can change the way your brain is functioning.
- Increased risk of dementia: People who have neglected hearing loss frequently exhibit an increased risk of dementia and cognitive decline. When the hearing loss is effectively treated, the risk diminishes substantially.
- Increased risk of depression and anxiety: An increase in anxiety and depression as a result of untreated hearing loss is not unusual according to numerous studies. And once more, when the root hearing loss has been treated, the risk factor drops considerably.
These issues aren’t unrelated, of course. Social isolation can exacerbate depression and other cognitive health problems. And your risk of dementia also goes up with social isolation.
Can mental decline be caused by hearing loss?
Your risk of cognitive decline and dementia is increased by untreated hearing loss, and that’s one of the more serious consequences of neglecting your hearing problems. Scientists have some theories about why this might be, but what’s clear is that management of symptoms helps substantially. In other words, managing your hearing loss has been shown to slow mental decline and lower your risk of developing dementia later in life.
Dealing with hearing loss related forgetfulness
If your fatigue and forgetfulness are caused by untreated hearing loss, the good news is that managing your hearing loss symptoms can absolutely have a positive effect. In cases where hearing loss is identified, we might recommend the following:
- The use of hearing aids: Using a hearing aid can help you hear better. This can lead to less strain on your cognitive abilities and an improvement in your social situation. By preventing and limiting social isolation, your cognition can improve, lowering your risk of dementia, depression, and other problems.
- Hearing protection: Some of the cognitive decline previously mentioned can be avoided and additional damage can be minimized by the use of hearing protection.
- Regular screenings: Routine screenings can help you identify problems with your hearing before they become substantial issues. Managing your hearing loss early can prevent mental strain.
You don’t need to stay forgetful!
If hearing loss is causing you to be a little forgetful, it’s important to emphasize that it doesn’t have to stay that way. In many instances, mental functions will come back once your brain doesn’t need to strain so hard. When you hear better, your brain doesn’t have to work so hard, and that rest can do a lot of good.
Make an appointment with us so that we can help you substantially improve your outlook and decrease your risk of other issues.