Hearing and Cognition: What's the Connection?

This isn't anything new!

We have known about the link between hearing and cognition for more than three decades. In the last five years or so, the connection between the two has received significant media attention and is often referenced in hearing aid advertisements.

I'm going to break down what we know about the link between hearing loss and cognitive loss and, more importantly, what we know about how the relationship actually works. 

Much of the recent thinking about hearing health and cognitive health stems from research studies led by Dr. Frank Lin at John Hopkins university; the facts below are based on Lin's studies.

Here's what we know...

Compared to age-matched people with normal hearing:

• People with hearing loss tend to have poorer cognitive function;
• they have a 24% increased risk of cognitive impairment.
• People with hearing loss are more likely to have a diagnosis of dementia;
• the risk of dementia increases with the severity of the loss, though even a mild loss doubles the risk.
• The cognitive abilities of people with hearing loss deteriorate faster;
• they develop cognitive issues an average of three years sooner.

What explains this?

While the relationship is complex and there are undoubtedly common causal factors (e.g. age-associated factors likely affect both auditory and cognitive mechanisms), there are three key ways in which we think hearing affects cognition.

1) Auditory Deprivation:

Hearing loss could affect cognition directly by causing permanent changes to the brain due to reduced auditory stimulation of neural pathways.