Hearing Healthcare Practice Founder, Robert Beiny, writes;
If I’ve heard that comment once in my professional life I’ve heard it a thousand times. But a study published this week in The Lancet and presented at The Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London caught my eye.
As an audiologist on the front line of dealing with how people react to the news that their hearing range has shifted, I have long known the importance of good hearing health. Now I can appreciate why it’s so important to alter bad habits.
The study highlights nine separate factors in our lives which we can modify and which appear to reduce there risks of developing Alzheimer’s Disease in later life. The largest and most surprising of the nine factors is hearing loss in middle age, which could cut the number of dementia cases by 9 per cent if everyone was treated before deafness set in.
We are well aware that our clients who suffer with cognitive decline appear to be happier and more connected with the world around them when they are hearing well. We have also long advocated the need for good hearing assessments to identify if someone with memory loss also has hearing loss.
Along with other studies, we appreciate that those with hearing loss are at higher risk of developing cognitive decline with age but this new research throws light on the issue far earlier in our lives.
In essence the researchers believe that the risks of cognitive collapse in later life can be reduced by making changes at different stages in our life – from our formative years onwards.
We still meet many people who delay advice to address their hearing loss when issues start to be noticed, sometimes from the misguided belief that wearing hearing technology will make them look old!
Hearing well and engaging fully in life does the complete opposite, it keeps us young and socially, as well as, professionally active.
So please heed the advice of your friendly audiologist and take positive steps to improve your hearing as soon as it starts to change.
It would now seem that the worst thing you could do is to delay this important decision.