Photo credit: Monica McGivern licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
We have written about this report before but important news bears repeating: A study using functional MRI techniques found that relatively young people with very mild hearing loss were using parts of their brain not normally used to try to understand speech. The researchers think that this added stress on the brain now may lead to an increased rate of dementia later.
The relationship between hearing loss and dementia is being studied in many ways. It has long been known that there was a correlation between hearing loss and dementia, with studies showing that people with worse hearing are more likely to develop dementia.
And one large study is trying to see if giving hearing aids to older people with hearing loss prevents dementia.
But it’s a whole lot easier–both a whole lot better, and a whole lot cheaper–to just avoid hearing loss by avoiding loud noise now. Hearing loss, after all, is not an inevitable part of aging.
Remember: if it sounds too loud, it IS too loud.
