- In this video, I'm talking about hearing loss,
and its link to dementia, coming up.
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Hi Guys, Cliff Olson, doctor of audiology,
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Anthem, Arizona.
And on this channel,
I cover a bunch of hearing-related information
to help make you a better-informed consumer.
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make sure you hit that Subscribe button.
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All right, guys, it is about that time
that we have that talk about hearing loss,
and its link to dementia.
At this point you probably have heard
about this link already,
and for some of you it might've been the deciding factor
in your decision to actually treat your hearing loss.
But in this video,
I actually wanna get into some of the research,
and show you the actual link
between hearing loss and dementia,
and what that actually means.
Up until The Lancet Commission was tasked
with identifying the preventable risk factors,
interventions, and care for dementia,
one of the more popular studies that was out there,
was done by Dr. Frank Lin.
This paper was titled, Hearing Loss and Incident Dementia.
This term, incident dementia,
is defined by when a study participant
was not demented at the time of baseline testing,
and received a new diagnosis of dementia upon follow-up,
at some point down the road
In the conclusion of this paper, they wrote,
"In this study we found that hearing loss
"was independently associated
"with incident all-cause dementia,
"after adjustment for sex, age, race, education,
"diabetes, smoking, and hypertension,
"and our findings were robust
"to multiple sensitivity analyses."
What they mean when they say that hearing loss
was independently associated with all-cause dementia,
they're actually talking about
how they were able to identify that
hearing loss in and of itself was the only factor in play
when they controlled for all of those other variables,
essentially meaning, when they come with these test results,
they know that it is not due to age,
it is not due to gender, it is not due to anything else,
other than just the hearing loss alone.
This graphic illustrates how the researchers found
that individuals with a mild hearing loss
were 200% more likely to experience dementia,
300% more likely if you have a moderate hearing loss,
and 500% more likely with a severe hearing loss.
In 2011, this was pretty convincing evidence,
that rattled a lot of individuals,
and no doubt encouraged some of those individuals
to actually seek hearing treatment.
In 2017, the the Lancet Commission on dementia convened,
in order to review the best-available evidence on dementia,
and to come up with recommendations on how to manage,
and even prevent the dementia epidemic.
What they ended up finding
was nine modifiable risk factors for dementia.
This infographic illustrates each risk factor,
and the percentage of risk
that it contributes towards dementia.
Starting at birth,
genetics can play a role in your risk of dementia.
If you had the ApoE 4 allele, then you are at higher risk.
This is currently
the only non-modifiable risk factor in this study,
and contributes to 7% of your overall risk of dementia.
As you move to early life, less education is a factor,
at 8% increased risk of dementia.
But when we get to midlife, you can see that hearing loss
contributes 9% to the total risk of dementia.
This happens to be the single highest
potentially-modifiable risk factor for dementia.
As you move into late life, you have other risk factors,
like depression, and social isolation,
which also happen to be well-documented side effects
of untreated hearing loss, and you could make an argument
that if you add these percentages together,
untreated hearing loss would account
for 15% of the increased risk of dementia.
Now, when it comes to hearing loss,
the commission explicitly stated,
"Results of cohort studies that have investigated hearing,
"have usually shown that even mild levels of hearing loss
"increase the long-term risk
"of cognitive decline and dementia
"in individuals who are cognitively intact,
"but hearing impaired at baseline."
Furthermore, they indicated that age 55
is the youngest average age
in which the presence of hearing loss
led to an increased risk of dementia.
So, even if you are a young individual, and you don't think
that you need to treat your hearing loss, think again.
All this being said,
does it mean that if you treat your hearing loss,
that you won't get dementia?
No.
Does it mean that if you don't treat your hearing loss,
that you will get dementia?
No.
What they're saying here, is that if you have hearing loss,
treating your hearing loss is your best way
to reduce your risk of dementia in the long run.
So, whether you decide to prevent hearing loss
by using hearing protection,
or whether you decide to treat your hearing loss
with surgery or with hearing aids,
it doesn't really matter to me.
All I know is that not treating your hearing loss,
is just plain risky.
That's it for this video, if you have any questions,
leave them in the comments sections below,
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and if you wanna see other videos just like this one,
make sure you hit that Subscribe button.
I'll see you next time.
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