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My quick story is that I have Tinnitus “ringing of the ears” and went to the big Hospital affiliated ENT doctor after waiting three months to get an appointment! This was in 2019. After an hour sitting the the waiting room, I was ushered into a hearing lab where an Audiologist tested me. I asked how about the tinnitus?- she said she only tested hearing – talk to the Doctor. I then waited again and saw the Doctor who told me I had mild to moderate hearing loss in one ear and moderate in the other. I asked about my Tinnitus and he said there is nothing they can do but if You don’t get hearing aids you could be get Dementia.Scary pivot! He could set me up right away for a fitting for hearing aids at around $6,500.
There is nothing scarier than bering told you could get dementia!
Luckily I had heard about the dementia issue and studied it a little bit before the visit and said “I came in here to discuss my significant issue of Tinnitus and I blurted out. all you want to do is to sell me $6,500 worth of hearing aids with the threat of dementia” and not deal with the Tinnitus
———- needless to say, he was offended by my saying this out loud!
At that point in time there was only one small study done (2015 involving 3,670 people) that suggested a link “unknown causal” of hearing loss to dementia.
Some of the best quotes I have read is from a Medical news story that says” Dementia is a progressive condition that affects the brain:
- Hearing loss may increase a person’s risk of developing dementia, partly through reduced social interaction. Wearing a hearing aid may help slow or prevent cognitive decline. Hearing loss may contribute to social isolation, lower quality of life, disability, depression, and dementia.”
-
Hearing loss puts a cognitive burden on other processes – the effort to make sense of speech may lead to the decline of other brain functions”.
- “Hearing loss causes brain changes, and dementia-related changes cause hearing loss”.
- Both Alzheimers and hearing loss display changes in the MTL (medial temporal lobe) neurons – but that is the extent of knowledge of entanglement.
- In a study that tracked 639 adults for nearly 12 years, Johns Hopkins expert Frank Lin, M.D., Ph. D., and his colleagues found that mild hearing loss doubled dementia risk. Moderate loss tripled risk, and people with a severe hearing impairment were five times more likely to develop dementia.
Someone just told me that on their family Thanksgiving trip that everyone but the brown-eyed people got sick.
While the aforementioned studies point to something, and is quoted as established science, (this is what my ENT quoted to scare me) the sample in the study was way too small and too short to be taken as fact or Science. There is a larger, more inclusive and statistically correct study ongoing. However we will not know the results until many years from now. Johns Hopkins and the University of Illinois are the leaders in this field.
As can be seen, there is suspicion but no concrete scientific findings on a direct relationship. Dementia has far too many stronger casual factors such as smoking, drinking, high blood pressure, brain injury, obesity, inactivity, diabetes, air pollution, and being over 65, to pin a direct relationship to a loss of hearing. I would think that the industry would be shouting from the highest rooftops that Hearing Aids help/cure Dementia –if it were medically proven. However the fact that a cure or deflection of Dementiat is not mentioned by any manufacturer or marketing says something about its relevance.
There is no doubt that hearing loss causes behavioral changes like depression, alienation, isolation, embarrassment, or falling in many elderly and they would be better off with hearing help.
Hearing aids have been too expensive in the United States for too long.
So when my new ENT said “you should spend $7,000 on hearing aids or you have a higher possibility of Dementia”, I was skeptical 1
Do not go out and buy expensive hearing aids thinking they will stave off Dementia. But like losing weight, it might help.
- I do not for a moment believe that a highly successful, educated Doctor would be scrounging for profits on a $6,500 hearing aid. I am also sure that the Medical Field is very frustrated by the lack of understand and the ability to affect a cure or realistic treatment for Tinnitus.
I am awed by the education and time spent by Doctors and their dedication to patients. At the time of the visit we were still two years away from being able to access OTC hearing aids. It will be very interesting to see if it is “business as usual” from the medical specialists, or will they start to recognize the disruption in their business model caused by a much cheaper solution which does not need their services. ↩
