October is National Protect Your Hearing Month, and a recent study is linking untreated hearing loss with dementia.
An 8-year study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that 32% of dementia cases in adults aged 66 to 90 years could be linked to untreated audiometric hearing loss.
“What this study shows is hearing is about brain health,” Hearing instrument specialist Dennis Tembreull said.
The study followed nearly 3,000 patients throughout those 8 years and found that dementia cases linked to untreated hearing loss were comparable between mild and moderate or greater hearing loss.
“It gives us definitive proof for patients that we can show them there is a risk, there is a reason to treat your hearing loss,” Tembreull said.
Only about 20% of patients treat their hearing loss, due to factors like cost, or sometimes not even realizing it is there, Tembreull said.
“Hearing loss is not often seen as the disability it is, but it takes us away from our relationships and from connecting us to the world,” according to Tembreull.
Tembreull said the best practice is to start having screenings after the age of 50. He said hearing assessments only take 10 or 15 minutes; the assessment is a series of tones across different frequencies to see where your hearing threshold is.
“Even with a mild hearing loss, there is a risk for cognitive impairment,” he said.
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