Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

3389 readers

428 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

WhoRoger@lemmy.world

RoyalEngineering@lemmy.world

Awa@lemmy.world

Can't Hear Conversation When There's Noise Around? A Study Links This to Dementia Risk (www.sciencealert.com)

submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hearing is a skill most of us take for granted. But a study from last year suggested that adults should listen out for changes in their hearing, as hearing difficulties might be linked to developing dementia at an older age.

In a study of over 80,000 adults over the age of 60, those who had trouble hearing speech in noisy environments had a greater risk of dementia, which is an umbrella term for conditions characterized by memory loss and difficulty with language and other thinking skills.

But there's an upside, too: The study added to evidence suggesting hearing problems may not just be a symptom of dementia but actually a risk factor of dementia that could possibly alert people, their families, or doctors to its onset before any deterioration begins.

"There has been a particular interest in hearing impairment and whether that can increase the risk of dementia," said epidemiologist and study author Thomas Littlejohns of the University of Oxford back in July 2021.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm assuming this isn't applicable for hearing aid wearers. Is that right? It's very difficult to filter out background noise with hearing aids.

[–] Lichtblitz@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

This is anecdotal evidence, so take it with a bathtub of salt:

Older folks, who refuse hearing aids, for whatever crazy reason, get slowly locked out of more and more social interaction. I've seen them deteriorate pretty quickly, while those, who embraced hearing aids early, had comparatively little trouble.

There is plenty of evidence that challenging and training the brain on intellectual tasks, slows down the onset of dementia. So I'm not surprised and when the time comes, I'll get those nice hearing aids with Bluetooth and everything.