Hearing is associated with an increased risk of dementia

According to a study published in the Journal of Neurology, primarily about Alzheimer's disease, people with hearing difficulties increase their risk of developing dementia when they get older, increasing the hope that their use of Hearing aids can prevent an increase in memory loss.

Research by surgeon Frank Lin and Johns Hopkins colleagues for more than 600 people (both male and female) suggests that the poorer the hearing of these subjects is the higher the risk of dementia. .

The scientists followed more than 600 subjects aged 36 to 90 in 12 years. In the first phase of the study, all of these subjects went through a hearing test but no one suffered from dementia.

During the study, they found that 9% of these people developed dementia. After eliminating age and other factors, they found that people with mild hearing loss were twice as likely to develop dementia as those with normal hearing. This risk is tripled in people with moderate hearing loss and five times for severe deafness.

Lin said that the reasons for this connection are not clear, but there are possibilities of hearing loss and dementia that have in common, although the cause is unknown; Another possibility is that obese adults may experience other difficulties due to reduced mental function or social isolation, which makes hearing loss less likely to affect dementia.

" The treatment of hearing loss will not harm you, but it will cost you a lot, " Lin said, noting that he is conducting experiments to test whether hearing loss will stop. Development of dementia.

However, hearing aids are now very expensive, which explains why only a small number of deaf people wear them.