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Hearing Loss Can Lead to Dementia!
This week’s show is a rebroadcast from the middle of 2019. I’m running it again because hearing and hearing loss is such an important subject, especially during this pandemic. We are all staying close to home and even more so for us older people. We are the ones who are most at risk for hearing loss and not getting it checked regularly and/or taken care of can make us more vulnerable to brain issues.
There are many studies showing that people with hearing loss who don’t get some kind of “intervention” such as a hearing aid or implant tend to have increased brain shrinkage and are more likely to develop dementia.
Hearing loss can be caused by ear wax or fluid buildup in the ear, by a punctured ear drum, various health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, etc., and heredity / genetics. The long term effects of hearing loss can be self-isolation, faster decline of cognitive abilities, and as I said previously dementia.
Any one of those items should be enough of a reason to get your hearing checked on a regular basis or when you feel like you’re not hearing as well as you used to. The latter is what got me to go and I’ve been wearing a hearing aid for more than 3 years now – it made a big difference in my life and it could in yours as well.