Age-related hearing loss can have broad impacts across your overall life. Besides your ability to hear, your professional life, your social life, and even your mental clarity can also be affected. Over time, hearing loss can profoundly impact the way your brain works in ways that directly impact your mood, your memory, and more.
Sometimes, the connection between hearing loss and cognition is subtle. For example, one of the earliest symptoms of hearing loss could be forgetfulness, but people rarely think that their memory troubles are linked to a loss of hearing. Sadly, the reality is that memory loss and hearing loss are closely connected.
What’s the connection between memory and hearing loss? Well, the relationship is at least partly the result of the unique ways that hearing loss can strain and stress your brain. Your mental abilities will usually improve when you manage your hearing loss.
How memory is impacted by hearing loss
Hearing loss can be difficult to notice. Frequently, people fail to notice the early warning signs and more subtle symptoms. Hearing loss may only be detected, for people in this category, when it becomes more extreme. In part, that’s because hearing loss has a tendency to progress rather slowly. Individuals frequently begin raising the volume on their devices more and more and tend to ignore their symptoms.
Another factor is how good the brain is at compensating for loss of sound. Consequently, you might not notice that people are harder to understand. This is beneficial in that you will likely experience fewer disruptions to your daily life. But it takes a substantial amount of brain power to compensate like this. Requiring your brain to perform at this level for long periods can lead to:
- Memory loss or forgetfulness
- Unexplained irritability
- 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 develop the best treatment plan.
Can hearing loss result in memory issues?
Of course, this mental exhaustion isn’t the only way that hearing loss can impact your brain. Forgetfulness is a common symptom. This is especially true of neglected hearing loss. Although scientists aren’t completely clear as to the cause and effect relationship, hearing loss has been solidly connected to the following problems.:
- Increased risk of depression and anxiety: Studies have shown that neglected hearing loss can also result in increases in both depression and anxiety over time. Again, this risk has been demonstrated to decrease when the underlying hearing loss is successfully managed.
- Social isolation: It isn’t uncommon for people to disengage from social contact when they have untreated hearing loss. They will often steer clear of conversations and will do things like going to self-checkout rather than talking to a cashier. Your brain will often alter the way it processes information as a result.
- Increased risk of dementia: The danger of dementia and other forms of cognitive decline is greater for people who have untreated hearing loss. When the hearing loss is effectively treated, the risk diminishes substantially.
These problems aren’t unrelated, of course. Mental health problems, including depression, can be worsened by social solitude. Similarly, that type of isolation can also raise your risk of developing dementia.
Does hearing loss cause cognitive decline?
Your risk of cognitive decline and dementia is increased by untreated hearing loss, and that’s one of the more serious outcomes of neglecting your hearing problems. Scientists have some theories about why this may be, but what’s clear is that management of symptoms helps significantly. In other words, treating your hearing loss has been shown to reduce mental decline and lower your risk of developing dementia down the road.
How to deal with your forgetfulness (and hearing loss)
If your fatigue and memory loss are caused by untreated hearing loss, the good news is that treating your hearing loss symptoms can absolutely have a positive impact. Here are a number of things we may suggest if hearing loss is identified:
- The use of hearing aids: Utilizing 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 avoiding and decreasing social isolation, your cognition can improve, decreasing your risk of dementia, depression, and other problems.
- Regular screenings: Before any problems start to occur, routine screenings can identify them. Cognitive strain can be avoided with early management.
- Hearing protection: The utilization of hearing protection can counter additional degradation of your hearing and, consequently, help prevent some of the cognitive strain described above.
You can improve your memory
If hearing loss is causing you to be a bit forgetful, it’s worthwhile to emphasize that it doesn’t need to stay that way. In many instances, cognitive functions will return once your brain doesn’t need to strain so hard. When you hear better, your brain doesn’t need to work so hard, and that rest can do a lot of good.
Make an appointment with us so that we can help you significantly improve your outlook and decrease your risk of other problems.
