The study was carried out by researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and other research institutions in the US. Funding was provided by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. The study was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Archives of Neurology.
Researchers have recently concluded that hearing loss is independently associated with dementia. They say that further study is needed to determine whether hearing loss is a marker for early-stage dementia, or whether hearing loss directly affects the risk of dementia.
So there is a link between dementia and hearing loss but at this time it is not clear how the two are related.
One other possibility that I wonder about is could it be that having a hearing loss and doing nothing about it, so ignoring using hearing aids, might impact on the risk of dementia?
Obviously, if hearing loss is a marker or common disease-related processes underlie both conditions, interventions to improve hearing are unlikely to reduce the risk of dementia.
But for now we do not know and neither do we know if by keeping the brain well stimulated with use of modern digital hearing aids risks are reduced.
Clearly further research is needed to get confirmation in larger studies in more representative groups in the community, as the authors themselves acknowledge.
Read Ascent Hearing Care's news article about newbielink:http://www.ascenthearing.co.uk/latest_news/articles/is-hearing-loss-an-early-warning-of-dementia-/index.html
[nonactive], also read more on newbielink:http://www.nhs.uk/news/2011/02February/Pages/hearing-loss-sign-of-cognitive-decline.aspx
[nonactive].
