One of the first things people with hearing loss observe is “I hear people fine, but I don’t understand what they are saying.” This is a consistent complaint of individuals who are experiencing the effects of a “sloping high frequency hearing loss." What’s happening and why do so many have this complaint? Hearing loss involves not only our ears, but also our brain: where sound waves are coded by the ears and then ...
Research by Johns Hopkins and other institutions have linked cognitive decline and even dementia to hearing loss for reasons you can read about here. One study found that older adults with hearing loss experience a 30-40 percent faster decline in cognitive abilities than peers with normal hearing. But a 25-year-long study published in 2015 found that hearing aid use reduced the risk of cognitive decline associated with hearing loss. Researchers also reported that treating hearing ...
Readers of the publication Trends in Neurosciences will already know today’s fact. For the other 99.9 percent of us, though, it is definitely interesting. According to a story in the June 2016 edition, research has confirmed that “even relatively mild levels of hearing loss” can lead to cascading negative effects on the brain. Those effects can impact perception, comprehension and memory. The thinking goes: the more effort it takes to listen and piece ...