Hearing loss and Dementia

dementia

Dementia is loss of cognitive functioning (thinking, remembering and reasoning), to an extent that it interferes with daily life and activities. There are many signs and symptoms of dementia depending upon the severity and type of cognitive decline but memory loss, poor judgement and confusions are present mostly in all individuals.

What are the signs and symptoms of dementia?

Signs and symptoms of dementia result when once-healthy neurons (nerve cells) in the brain stop working, lose connections with other brain cells, and die. While everyone loses some neurons as they age, people with dementia experience far greater loss.

The signs and symptoms can vary depending on the type and may include:

• Experiencing memory loss, poor judgment, and confusion

• Difficulty speaking, understanding and expressing thoughts, or reading and writing

• Wandering and getting lost in a familiar neighbourhood

• Trouble handling money responsibly and paying bills

• Repeating questions

• Using unusual words to refer to familiar objects

• Taking longer to complete normal daily tasks

• Losing interest in normal daily activities or events

• Hallucinating or experiencing delusions or paranoia

• Acting impulsively

• Not caring about other people’s feelings

• Losing balance and problems with movement

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities can also develop dementia as they age, and in these cases, recognizing their symptoms can be particularly difficult. It’s important to consider a person’s current abilities and to monitor for changes over time that could signal dementia.

There is a high correlation of dementia with hearing loss. The latest epidemiological studies suggests that hearing loss act as an risk factor and accounts for almost 9% cases with dementia.

How hearing loss and dementia related?

There are number of theories that associate hearing loss with dementia and it is a ongoing research topic. There are a few popular theories.

1. Vascular Pathology: The vascular mechanism for brain and auditory system is somewhat inter-related and therefore any problem in auditory system also manifest itself through dementia.

2. Increased cognitive load: Hearing and understanding speech is a very complex mechanism. There is increased burden on brain due to hearing loss and brain loss the ability assimilate the information to a greater extent and thus it may cause the dementia.

3. Impoverished environment: Our brain is not able to connect to the environment the way it used to do earlier and thus this causes changes in the mechanism of brain. Thus it may lead to dementia.

Take care of hearing health. Understand the signs and symptoms of hearing loss and dementia and proper steps. For more information about hearing loss, contact our audiologists at +91-9716088173 or email us at unicareshc@gmail.com.