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 affected. The way your brain works, including your memory and mood, can be substantially affected by hearing loss.
The link between cognition and hearing loss isn’t always apparent. For instance, one of the initial symptoms of hearing loss may be forgetfulness, but people rarely think that their memory issues are associated with a loss of hearing. Sadly, the truth is that memory loss and hearing loss are closely linked.
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 to some extent, the connection. Usually, when your hearing loss symptoms are successfully managed, your cognitive abilities will sharpen.
How memory is Affected by hearing loss
Hearing loss can be hard to notice. It isn’t uncommon for individuals to miss the more subtle and early signs. Hearing loss might only be recognized, for individuals in this category, when it becomes more severe. The progression of hearing loss is often slow over time and that’s partly why it’s initially difficult to detect. It’s commonly easy to disregard symptoms and, essentially, turn up the volume on your television a little more every few days (or weeks).
In addition, the human brain is very good at compensating for intermittent loss of sounds. As a result, you may not notice that people are harder to understand. The positive thing about this is that your day-to-day life will have fewer interruptions. However, compensating like this requires significant brain power. Requiring your brain to perform at this level for long periods can result in:
- Unexplained irritability
- Memory loss or forgetfulness
- Chronic fatigue
If you’re having these symptoms, we’ll be able to inform you whether the underlying cause is hearing loss or not. If it’s established that you’re dealing with hearing loss, we can help you establish the best treatment plan.
Can memory issues be the result of hearing loss?
Obviously, your brain can be affected by hearing loss in other ways besides mental exhaustion. Forgetfulness is a common symptom. When hearing loss has gone untreated, this is especially true. Though scientists aren’t perfectly clear as to the cause and effect relationship, hearing loss has been solidly connected to the following issues.:
- Increased risk of depression and anxiety: Research has shown that neglected hearing loss can also result in increases in both depression and anxiety over time. Again, this risk has been demonstrated to drop when the underlying hearing loss is successfully managed.
- Increased risk of dementia: Individuals with neglected hearing loss often exhibit an increased danger of dementia and mental decline. This risk declines considerably when the hearing loss is treated and managed.
- Social isolation: Individuals with untreated hearing loss will often begin to isolate themselves from others. They will frequently steer clear of conversations and will do things like using self-checkout rather than talking to a cashier. Over time, this sort of isolation can alter the way your brain is functioning.
All of these issues are obviously intertwined. Social isolation can exacerbate depression and other mental health problems. And your risk of dementia also increases with social solitude.
Does hearing loss cause mental decline?
One of the more severe impacts of neglected hearing loss is a pronounced increase in your risk of cognitive decline and dementia. It’s quite clear that management of the symptoms helps significantly and scientists have a few theories as to why. In other words, treating 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 related forgetfulness
If your fatigue and forgetfulness are caused by neglected hearing loss, the good news is that managing your hearing loss symptoms can definitely have a positive effect. In cases where hearing loss is detected, we might recommend the following:
- Regular screenings: Regular screenings can help you identify problems with your hearing before they become substantial issues. Managing your hearing loss early can prevent cognitive strain.
- Hearing protection: Some of the mental decline previously mentioned can be avoided and further damage can be decreased by the use of hearing protection.
- The use of hearing aids: You will hear better with the use of a hearing aid. This can lead to less strain on your cognitive abilities and an improvement in your social situation. Your risk of dementia, depression, and other possible issues can be reduced and your cognition can be improved by limiting your social isolation.
You can improve your memory
If hearing loss is causing you to be a bit forgetful, it’s worthwhile to highlight that it doesn’t need to stay that way. In many instances, cognitive 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.
Schedule an appointment with us so that we can help you significantly improve your outlook and reduce your risk of other problems.