Use the labels in the right column to find what you want. Or you can go thru them one by one, there are only 34,483 posts. Searching is done in the search box in upper left corner. I blog on anything to do with stroke. DO NOT DO ANYTHING SUGGESTED HERE AS I AM NOT MEDICALLY TRAINED, YOUR DOCTOR IS, LISTEN TO THEM. BUT I BET THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET YOU 100% RECOVERED. I DON'T EITHER BUT HAVE PLENTY OF QUESTIONS FOR YOUR DOCTOR TO ANSWER.
Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain!trillions and trillions of neuronsthatDIEeach day because there areNOeffective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there. Did your doctor somehow miss the recovery protocol that Pedro Bach-y-Rita used to recover fully back in 1958 with only a partial brain?
What this blog is for:
My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.
Hearing aid intervention did not significantly reduce the 24-month incidence of dementia-level impairment among older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and moderate-to-severe hearing loss, according to the CHOICE randomised clinical trial published in JAMA Neurology.
However, hearing aid intervention was associated with a higher rate of cognitive improvement, a prespecified secondary outcome that the researchers said warranted cautious interpretation.
Ying Chen, MD, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, and colleagues conducted the multicentre, open-label trial at 3 tertiary otology outpatient clinics and 3 community health stations in Shanghai. Among 21,908 adults aged 60 years or older assessed for eligibility, 703 participants with coexisting MCI and moderate-to-severe hearing loss were randomised 1:1 to hearing aid intervention or hearing care education.
Patients in the intervention group received free binaural behind-the-ear hearing aids, fitted by certified audiologists, while the control group received structured education on hearing care, chronic disease management, healthy lifestyle modifications, and cognitive decline prevention. The primary outcome was conversion from MCI to dementia-level impairment, defined as a Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) global score of 1 or more, at 24 months.
Among 703 randomised patients, 610 (86.77%) completed follow-up. Dementia-level impairment occurred in 3.09% of the hearing aid group versus 4.74% of the education group (risk difference = -2.07%; 95% confidence interval [CI], -4.74% to 0.61%; relative risk [RR] = 0.59; 95% CI, 0.25-1.38; P = .23). By contrast, cognitive improvement, defined as a CDR change from 0.5 to 0, occurred in 15.34% versus 2.36%, respectively (RR = 5.94; 95% CI, 2.46-14.37).
The researchers noted that the 24-month follow-up may have been relatively short for assessing dementia incidence, and the study used a narrower MCI population defined by CDR=0.5. Other limitations included reliance on the subjective CDR scale and potential confounding from the education provided to the control group.
“In this study, hearing aid intervention did not significantly reduce the incidence of dementia-level impairment at 24 months in older adults with coexisting hearing loss and mild cognitive impairment,” wrote Chen and colleagues. The authors proposed that biologically informed MCI subtyping and studies across diverse populations could help clarify the findings through improved generalisability and variable cognitive outcomes.
Don't know if you want to wait for the perfect or need to address hearing loss now to prevent dementia! I guess the ads for Nebroo hearing aids are jumping the gun on their professed capabilities.
Summary: Researchers provided the first direct evidence that brain-controlled technology can help listeners isolate a single voice in a crowded environment. The study demonstrates a system that acts as a “neural extension,” utilizing real-time brain signals to identify which speaker a person is focusing on and automatically amplifying that specific voice.
This breakthrough addresses the “cocktail party effect”, a major limitation of conventional hearing aids, which often struggle to distinguish between overlapping conversations in noisy settings.
Key Research Findings
The Brain-First Approach: Unlike traditional hearing aids that indiscriminately amplify all incoming sounds, this system leverages the brain’s natural ability to filter complex environments.
Real-Time Identification: Using machine-learning algorithms, the system monitors the timing of brain wave “peaks and valleys” to match them with the specific patterns of a conversation.
Direct Human Evidence: The study involved epilepsy patients with pre-implanted electrodes; the system correctly identified their focus and adjusted volumes instantly, significantly improving speech intelligibility and reducing “listening effort”.
Dynamic Flexibility: The technology functioned successfully both when subjects were guided to a speaker and when they chose a conversation freely, mirroring real-world social dynamics.
Practical Application: This research marks the transition of brain-controlled hearing from theoretical science to a functional prototype that provides immediate, real-time benefits.
Source: Columbia University
Scientists at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute have the first direct evidence from human studies that brain-controlled hearing technology can help people single out a voice in a crowd.
These early findings suggest that researchers may one day develop a hearing augmentation device that can, among other feats, overcome the problems that conventional hearing aids have with noisy surroundings.
By monitoring the synchronization of brain waves with the rhythms of specific voices, this real-time system acts as a neural extension that amplifies a listener’s intended conversation while silencing competing background noise. Credit: Neuroscience NewsTheir research was published online today in Nature Neuroscience.
“We have developed a system that acts as a neural extension of the user, leveraging the brain’s natural ability to filter through all the sounds in a complex environment to dynamically isolate the specific conversation they wish to hear,” said senior author Nima Mesgarani, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute and an associate professor of electrical engineering at Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.
“This science empowers us to think beyond traditional hearing aids, which simply amplify sound, toward a future where technology can restore the sophisticated, selective hearing of the human brain,” Dr. Mesgarani added.
In the new study, Columbia researchers teamed up with surgeons and their epilepsy patients who were undergoing brain surgery to better pinpoint the sources of their seizures. The hospital patients, who volunteered to be part of this study, already had electrodes implanted in their brains.
Dr. Mesgarani’s system used the electrodes to measure the brain activity of the patients as they focused on one of two overlapping conversations played simultaneously. The system then automatically detected which conversation a patient was paying attention to and adjusted the volume in real time, turning up that conversation while quieting the other.
For one volunteer, the experience of controlling the system with her brain was literally unbelievable. She accused the researchers of secretly adjusting the volumes. Others told stories about friends and family with hearing impairments who could benefit from such a technology. One person said: “It seems like science fiction.”
Modern hearing aids excel at amplifying speech while suppressing certain kinds of background noise, such as traffic. But they cannot separate and enhance particular voices of interest; they boost every voice coming into the microphone indiscriminately. This makes it difficult for people to concentrate on a specific talker amidst a jumble of voices.
A promising solution to this problem is a hearing device that could mimic the way in which the human brain can typically identify and focus on just one speaker in a crowd, a phenomenon sometimes called the cocktail party effect.
In 2012, Dr. Mesgarani and his colleagues discovered ways to identify which sets of brain signals are linked with specific conversations amidst crowds of speakers. For example, the timing of peaks and valleys of brain waves can match up with the sounds and silences within a conversation. They also found that a distinct pattern of brain activity can reveal which conversation a person was focusing on and which they were filtering out.These discoveries could one day lead to real-world hearing assistance and augmentation devices that can monitor brain waves to detect and amplify the conversation a person is most interested in.
Over the course of hundreds of more studies in the past decade or so, Dr. Mesgarani and others have overcome a host of challenges attempting to make this dream a reality, such as developing computer algorithms to automatically separate out the voices of multiple speakers in a group, and then compare the voice of each speaker to the brain waves of a listener.
“The central unanswered question was whether brain-controlled hearing technology could move beyond incremental advances, towards a prototype that could help someone hear better in real time,” said Vishal Choudhari, the paper’s first author, who received his PhD in electrical engineering while in Dr. Mesgarani’s lab and who led the development and evaluation of the system.
“For the first time, we have shown that such a system that reads brain signals to selectively enhance conversations can provide a clear real-time benefit. This moves brain-controlled hearing from theory toward practical application.”
The researchers partnered with physicians and patients who volunteered to be part of the study at the Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine; the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, New York University School of Medicine; and the University of California San Francisco’s Department of Neurological Surgery.
The scientists developed real-time machine-learning algorithms that could examine the brainwaves and identify which conversation the patients were paying attention to. Once deployed, their system could rapidly deduce which conversation each listener was paying attention to and make it easier for them to hear it.
This happened both when the researchers guided the subjects toward a particular conversation, and when the subjects chose freely, as would be necessary in a real-world conversation.
“For this to work in real time, the system has to be very fast, accurate and stable for the experience to feel pleasant for the listener,” Dr. Mesgarani said.
The scientists found their new system correctly identified which conversation the volunteers paid attention to. This dramatically improved the intelligibility of the speech the volunteers focused on, reduced listening effort, and was consistently preferred by the volunteers when compared to conversations the system did not provide assistance with.One volunteer recalled her uncle, who had hearing problems. “Can you imagine if this technology existed in a world [where] … he could access it? He might actually live a much more peaceful… life.”
According to the World Health Organization, more than 430 million people worldwide live with disabling hearing loss, many of whom struggle most in noisy social environments. Untreated hearing loss is a leading modifiable risk factor for dementia, as well as a primary contributor to depression and social isolation.
Scientists say this research lays the groundwork for future wearable systems that could one day integrate brain sensing with advanced audio processing. This would assist people with hearing loss and potentially augment hearing and reduce fatigue from listening for anyone in everyday challenging environments such as restaurants, classrooms, busy workplaces and family gatherings.
The scientists note that a great deal of work is needed before this technology is available in a wearable form that can work in a minimally invasive way in more complicated real-world scenarios. For instance, they would one day like to see how well their system can perform in real-world listening conditions which are more complex, Dr. Mesgarani said.
“The results mark an important step toward a new generation of brain-controlled hearing technologies that align with the listener’s intent, potentially transforming how people navigate noisy, multi-talker environments,” Dr. Choudhari added.
The full list of authors includes Vishal Choudhari, Maximilian Nentwich, Sarah Johnson, Jose L. Herrero, Stephan Bickel, Ashesh D. Mehta, Daniel Friedman, Adeen Flinker, Edward F. Chang, and Nima Mesgarani.
Funding: This work was funded by grants from the Marie-Josee and Henry R. Kravis Foundation and the National Institute of Health’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
Key Questions Answered:
Q: Will I need brain surgery to use this in the future?
A: While this study used surgical electrodes for precision, the ultimate goal is to develop wearable, minimally invasive systems that integrate brain sensing with audio processing for everyday use.
Q: How does the system “know” which person I’m listening to?
A: Every voice has a unique “rhythm” of sound and silence. Your brain activity syncs up with those specific rhythms when you focus. The system’s algorithms compare the brain waves of the listener to the separate voice streams it detects and “matches” them.
Q: Why is this considered a major health breakthrough?
A: Disabling hearing loss affects over 430 million people and is a primary risk factor for dementia, depression, and social isolation. Technology that makes social environments “peaceful” again could significantly reduce the cognitive fatigue and isolation associated with hearing impairment.
Editorial Notes:
This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
Journal paper reviewed in full.
Additional context added by our staff.
About this auditory neuroscience and neurotech research news
Author: Nima Mesgarani, PhD Source: Columbia University Contact: Nima Mesgarani, PhD – Columbia University Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
With your risk of dementia post stroke your competent? doctor knew enough to get your hearing tested and hearing aids acquired to reduce that risk of dementia!
Your risk of dementia, has your doctor
told you of this? Your doctor is responsible for preventing this! Is
s/he willing to prevent this?
Do you
prefer your doctor, hospital and board of director's incompetence NOT
KNOWING? OR NOT DOING? Your choice; let them be incompetent or demand
action!
OH NO! your doctor KNOWS NOTHING AND DOES NOTHING!
Hearing loss has been considered one of the key risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia. Liu et al.1 establish a causal link between hearing activity, hippocampal neurogenesis, and cognitive function and identify the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system as the mediator.
Treating hearing loss with hearing aids was associated with a decline in mortality risk, a new study showed.
Your health resolutions for the new year may need to include getting checked for hearing aids.
Wearing hearing aids if you need them may help protect you from early death, according to a new study published Wednesday in The Lancet Healthy Longevity journal.
“What we found was that there was a 24% lower risk of mortality
for people who use hearing aids,” said Dr. Janet Choi, an assistant
professor of clinical otolaryngology-head and neck surgery with the
University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine and an
otolaryngologist with Keck Medicine of USC.
The study looked at the data of 10,000 people — more than 1,800 of
whom were identified as having hearing loss — and followed up on their
mortality between 1999 and 2012.
Some 237 of those with hearing loss reported using hearing aids at
least once a week, whereas 1,483 reported never using hearing devices,
according to the research.
There was no difference in risk of death over the research period
between people who used hearing aids occasionally and those who never
wore them, but regular users were at a significantly lower risk, the
study showed.
And that mortality risk was lower for hearing aid users regardless
of factors such as age, ethnicity, income, education, medical history
and degree of hearing loss, according to the study.
About 30 million people
ages 12 and older in the United States have hearing loss in both ears,
according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication
Disorders.
But only about 15% of those who could benefit from hearing aids are using them, according to the author of an April study.
“The (new) study underscores the critical role of addressing
modifiable risk factors not just for immediate health benefits but as a
potent strategy for enhancing overall longevity and well-being,” Dr.
Thomas Holland, physician scientist at the Rush Institute for Healthy
Aging, said via email. Holland was not involved in the research.
Fortunately, self-fitting, over-the-counter hearing aids are now
available, and the April study shows they may be just as effective as
those fitted from by an audiologist.
Why hearing aids are so helpful
The latest study adds more support to the understanding that
hearing loss and longevity are connected, but there are still questions
about why that is, Choi said.
“This is an association study. We didn’t really particularly look at the mechanism behind these associations,” she said.
But there are some hypotheses as to why the association between hearing aids and longevity exists.
Previous studies have shown a connection between hearing loss and
frailty, and there is evidence that untreated hearing loss could affect
social isolation and declines in physical activity and cognitive
function, Choi said.
“There are also some studies showing that the auditory deprivation
itself — not getting enough sound — can have negative impact on brain
structures,” she added.
A possible connection with dementia
Hearing aids could also mean a lowered dementia risk, according to
a study published Thursday in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology — Head
and Neck Surgery.
The study looked at data from more than 500,000 people 50 years of
age or older in southern Denmark and followed up on their health
between 2003 and 2017.
Those with hearing loss were at a 7% greater risk of developing
dementia, according to the study. And the risk was even higher (14%) in
those with hearing loss who did not use hearing aids compared with those
who did.
The large and well-conducted study is just part of an expanding
body of evidence that hearing loss and dementia are connected, but there
are still questions about whether that is causation or correlation,
said Dr. Jason Warren, professor of neurology and consultant neurologist
at University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology.
“Studies of this kind should be interpreted with care — the brain
changes associated with early dementia can affect hearing potentially
some years before dementia is diagnosed,” Warren said. “We should
therefore be cautious about inferring that hearing loss causes dementia
or that dementia can be prevented by wearing hearing aids.”
Getting checked
The growing body of research shows that if you are noticing a
difference in your hearing, you should go get checked, Choi said.
Hearing loss should not be “counted as something related to (a)
normal part of aging and there’s nothing that they need to do about it,”
she added. “There’ll be even more studies coming out that will show
that hearing aids are helpful and they have positive impact. And we all
know that at the end of the day, it really helps with patients’
communication and quality of life.”
If you do have hearing loss, at least try out hearing aids,
especially with the significant improvements in technology, Choi said.
“A lot of people are not using hearing aids because they don’t
want to look older,” she added. “They don’t want to be associated with
disability, but it really doesn’t have to be that way.”
It is important to be proactive when it comes to addressing health
risks, especially when they are as easily modifiable as wearing hearing
aids, Holland said.
Work closely with your doctors and stay on top of checkups while
monitoring your sleep, exercise, nutrition, alcohol intake, blood
pressure and blood sugar for a longer, healthy life, he added.
“By fostering a partnership with your healthcare provider and
adopting a lifestyle that prioritizes these factors, you empower
yourself to build a robust foundation for long-lasting well-being and
vitality,” Holland said.
Clarification: This story was updated to clarify the source of the percentage of people who use hearing aids.
Hearing loss is more than a marker for dementia risk, it appears
by
John Gever, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today
July 18, 2023
AMSTERDAM -- Cognitive decline in older
adults with dementia risk factors was slower when they wore hearing aids
in a randomized trial.
But no benefit from hearing aids was seen in otherwise similar
individuals without risk factors for dementia, the results indicated.
Among at-risk individuals, cognitive decline was reduced by 48% over 3
years of follow-up in those assigned to wear hearing aids relative to a
control group given general health advice, according to Frank Lin, MD,
PhD, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and colleagues.
In
a different segment of the trial sample comprising healthy older
people, though, use of hearing aids did not affect participants'
cognitive trajectory.
Numerous studies have linked hearing loss with future dementia risk,
but the nature of that association, and particularly whether it was
causal, has not been clear. In the Lancet paper, Lin and
colleagues explained that several theories have been advanced for how
hearing loss might exacerbate cognitive decline: coping with it might
increase a person's "cognitive load," alter brain structure, and/or
discourage "engagement in social and cognitively stimulating
activities."
If there is indeed a causal connection, then hearing loss could
therefore be a modifiable factor -- hence the impetus for ACHIEVE.
Lin and colleagues enrolled two different sets of people in the trial, both connected to the long-running Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) project.
This is an observational study that began in 1987 to follow people from
middle age into their senior years. It has operated at four U.S. sites
in North Carolina, Mississippi, Minnesota, and Maryland. The two ACHIEVE
cohorts were 238 current ARIC participants and another 739 newly
recruited (the "de novo" group) from the same four ARIC locations. Both
groups were randomized 1:1 to receive hearing aids or a health-education
program.
In general, the current ARIC participants would be considered at
higher risk for future dementia because baseline factors including
cognitive performance, educational attainment, and household income were
all lower at baseline(Mine are great), and they had higher rates of illnesses such as
hypertension(Mine is treated) and diabetes(Nope). This increased estimated risk was confirmed
in ACHIEVE, as ARIC participants assigned to the education control
experienced significantly greater cognitive decline during the trial's
3-year follow-up than did control participants in the de novo group.
Cognitive
ability was primarily measured with a battery of 10 standard tests,
such as delayed word recall, trail making, and animal naming. The
investigators took pains to minimize the effects of hearing loss itself
on test performance; only two of the tests exclusively involved hearing
ability.
Secondary cognitive outcomes included the Mini-Mental State
Examination and different subsets of the 10 neurocognitive tests
specific to executive function, language skill, and memory. Different
types of hearing aids were provided, individualized for participants
after audiological testing.
ACHIEVE's primary endpoint was overall cognitive ability in both the
ARIC and de novo groups pooled together; in this analysis, no benefit
for the hearing aids was found. As noted earlier, no benefit was found
either for the de novo group.
It was only in the ARIC group that a difference between the
intervention and control groups was seen: a decline of 0.211 points with
hearing aids versus 0.402 among controls (P=0.027). The biggest differential was in language ability (-0.116 vs -0.344, P=0.012);
numerical advantages for the hearing aids were seen in executive
function and memory but they fell just short of statistical
significance.
Lin
and colleagues noted that, because cognitive declines were much smaller
in the de novo group -- there was no change at all in mean memory
scores -- it would be difficult to see a benefit from hearing aids.
Furthermore, some of these participants decided to start using hearing
aids on their own, thus diluting the results.
In an accompanying commentary in The Lancet,
two University College London researchers wondered at the magnitude of
benefit seen in the ARIC participants, which they called "enormous" and
perhaps "spurious."
To confirm the results, wrote Gill Livingston, MBBS, and Sergi
Costafreda, MD, PhD, new studies should employ broader outcome measures
that take in "mood, independence, social network, and physical
activity," as well as "quantity of social contact."
In addition, they urged the ACHIEVE investigators to continue
follow-up, especially in the de novo group, to determine whether an
advantage for hearing aids becomes apparent with continued long-term
use.
John Gever was Managing Editor from 2014 to 2021; he is now a regular contributor.
Disclosures
ACHIEVE was funded by the National Institute on Aging and the Eleanor Schwartz Charitable Foundation.
Lin
reported a relationship with Frequency Therapeutics, Apple,
Sonova/Phonak, Cochlear, Fondation Pour L'Audition, and Sharper Sense.
Other authors reported extensive relationships with auditory device
makers and pharmaceutical companies.
Primary Source
The Lancet
Source Reference: Lin
FR, et al "Hearing intervention versus health education control to
reduce cognitive decline in older adults with hearing loss in the USA
(ACHIEVE): a multicentre, randomised controlled trial" Lancet 2023; DOI:
10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01406-X.
In a recent study published in The Lancet Public Health Journal, the researchers examined the correlation between the use of hearing aids and the risk of developing dementia.
Both hearing loss and dementia are common in older adults. Using
hearing aids to treat hearing loss in middle-aged or older individuals
could potentially lower the risk of dementia.
The impact of hearing aid use on reducing the risk of dementia in
real-world situations is uncertain, despite studies indicating that it
can enhance cognitive function and reduce cognitive decline.
About a study
In the present study, researchers investigated the link between
hearing aid usage and the likelihood of developing cause-specific and
all-cause dementia.
UK Biobank is a cohort study that enrolled more than 500,000
volunteers aged between 40 years and 69 years from 2006 to 2010. A
questionnaire was used to gather data on hearing loss and hearing aid
usage.
The participant's hearing status was determined through a
self-reported question that asked, "Do you experience any hearing
difficulties?" Users can respond with "no", "yes", or "I am completely
deaf".
The hearing loss status was divided into two categories: those
without hearing loss and those with hearing loss. The study gathered
information on the usage of hearing aids through a self-reported
question that asked participants if they used a hearing aid often, with
the option to answer "yes" or "no".
Starting in 2009, UK Biobank participants were surveyed about their
use of hearing aids. Deaf participants were categorized as part of the
group including individuals with hearing loss who did not use hearing
aids, without being questioned about their use of hearing aids.
Dementia diagnoses were determined through hospital inpatient records
as well as death register data. The study measured incident all-cause
dementia as the outcome variable, which included subtypes such as
Alzheimer's disease, non-Alzheimer's disease, nonvascular dementia, and
vascular dementia.
Results
Almost 437,704 individuals were included in the analyses. The study
involved participants with a mean age of 56.0 years, consisting of
235,249 females and 202,455 males at baseline. The average length of
follow-up was 12.1 years.
There were 325,882 participants without hearing loss and 111,822 with
hearing loss. Approximately 13,092 individuals with hearing loss
utilized hearing aids.
Hearing loss was more prevalent in men than women and increased with
age. Individuals who suffer from obesity, loneliness, depressed mood,
and cardiovascular disease are more likely to experience hearing loss
and use hearing aids.
Individuals who had hearing loss but did not use hearing aids have a
higher likelihood of developing all-cause dementia in comparison to
those without hearing loss while people with hearing loss using hearing aids did not report increased risk.
The proportion of dementia risk among people with hearing loss who
did not use hearing aids was almost 29%. Similar findings were observed
for correlations with dementia subtypes. The study found that there were
no significant differences between men and women in the results of
stratified analyses.
However, the attributable risk proportions for different dementia
types for hearing loss without using a hearing aid were higher among
females than in males.
The study found that mediators played a role in the relationship
between dementia and hearing aid usage. Specifically, 1.52% of the
association was attributed to improved social isolation, 2.28% to
improved loneliness, and 7.14% to improved depressed mood.
Significant interactions were observed for dementia, education,
smoking, income level, cardiovascular disease, and APOE e4 allele
status. Furthermore, dementia was found to be more prevalent in
high-risk groups.
Individuals with hearing loss who did not use hearing aids had the
highest risk across most interaction variables, while those who used
hearing aids had lower to no risk increases compared to individuals
having no hearing loss.
Two APOE e4 alleles were linked to higher dementia risk and did not
show significant risk variations across hearing loss and hearing aid
usage.
Conclusion
The study findings showed that individuals with hearing loss have a
42% higher risk of developing dementia compared to those with normal
hearing. Up to 8% of dementia cases could be prevented with hearing loss
management, highlighting the important need to address this issue.
Using hearing aids was linked to a similar risk of dementia as
individuals without hearing loss. Further highlighting a need to better
our hearing loss management.
Associations were found in cause-specific and all-cause dementia
subtypes. Clinical trials are necessary to evaluate the impact of
hearing aid usage on dementia risk.
The role of various types of hearing aids and the duration of their
use in preventing dementia in hearing impairment also needs to be
determined.
Bhavana
Kunkalikar is a medical writer based in Goa, India. Her academic
background is in Pharmaceutical sciences and she holds a Bachelor's
degree in Pharmacy. Her educational background allowed her to foster an
interest in anatomical and physiological sciences. Her college project
work based on ‘The manifestations and causes of sickle cell anemia’
formed the stepping stone to a life-long fascination with human
pathophysiology.
This from February 2021 should have
already had your doctor testing and providing you with hearing aids. If
not, you don't have a functioning stroke doctor.
A new study led by researchers at the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that older adults with
greater severity of hearing loss were more likely to have dementia, but the likelihood of dementia was lower among hearing aid users compared to non-users.
The findings, from a nationally
representative sample of more than 2,400 older adults, are consistent
with prior studies showing that hearing loss might be a contributing
factor to dementia risk over time, and that treating hearing loss may
lower dementia risk.
The findings are highlighted in a research letter published online January 10 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“This study refines what we’ve observed about
the link between hearing loss and dementia, and builds support for
public health action to improve hearing care access,” says lead author
Alison Huang, PhD, MPH, a senior research associate in the Bloomberg
School’s Department of Epidemiology and at the Cochlear Center for
Hearing and Public Health, also at the Bloomberg School.
Hearing loss is a critical public
health issue affecting two-thirds of Americans over 70. The growing
understanding that hearing loss might be linked to the risk of dementia,
which impacts millions, and other adverse outcomes has called attention
to implementing possible strategies to treat hearing loss.
For the new study, Huang and colleagues
analyzed a nationally representative dataset from the National Health
and Aging Trends Study (NHATS). Funded by the National Institute on
Aging, the NHATS has been ongoing since 2011, and uses a nationwide
sample of Medicare beneficiaries over age 65, with a focus on the
90-and-over group as well as Black individuals.
The analysis covered 2,413 individuals, about
half of whom were over 80 and showed a clear association between
severity of hearing loss and dementia. Prevalence of dementia among the
participants with moderate/severe hearing loss was 61 percent higher
than prevalence among participants who had normal hearing. Hearing aid
use was associated with a 32 percent lower prevalence of dementia in the
853 participants who had moderate/severe hearing loss.
The authors note that many past studies were
limited in that they relied on in-clinic data collection, leaving out
vulnerable populations that did not have the means or capacity to get to
a clinic. For their study, the researchers collected data from
participants through in-home testing and interviews.
How hearing loss is linked to dementia isn’t yet clear, and studies point to several possible mechanisms.
Huang’s research adds to a body of work by the Cochlear Center for
Hearing and Public Health examining the relationship between hearing
loss and dementia.
The study authors expect to have a fuller picture of the effect of hearing loss treatment on cognition and dementia from their
Aging and Cognitive Health Evaluation in Elders (ACHIEVE) Study.
Results from the three-year randomized trial are expected this year.
“Hearing loss and dementia prevalence in
older adults in the United States” was co-authored by Alison Huang,
Kening Jiang, Frank Lin, Jennifer Deal, and Nicholas Reed.
Support for the research was provided by the National Institute on Aging (K23AG065443, K01AG054693).
# # #
Reported Co-Author Disclosures:NicholasReed,
AuD, serves on the scientific advisory board of Neosensory. Frank Lin,
MD, PhD, is a consultant to Frequency Therapeutics and Apple and
director of a research center funded in part by a philanthropic gift
from Cochlear Ltd to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health. Lin is also a board member of the nonprofit Access HEARS.
This from February 2021 should have already had your doctor testing and providing you with hearing aids. If not , you don't have a functioning stroke doctor.
Could hearing aids help prevent dementia? New study finds possible link
Your hearing could play a role in the risk of developing dementia —
and hearing aids could be an important tool in countering that.
A
new study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health examined 2,413 older adults — ages 65 and older — and
found those with more severe hearing loss were also more likely to also
develop dementia.
However, the study found, that risk was reduced when the person used hearing aids.
While previous studies linked hearing loss and dementia, the new research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, goes outside of a clinical setting and includes in-home testing and interviews to better understand the connection.
Researchers
used data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study, from the
National Institute on Aging, to conduct an analysis of thousands of
older Americans. Half of the study participants were over 80 years old
and showed a clear connection between severe hearing loss and the
development of dementia.
“Prevalence of dementia among the
participants with moderate/severe hearing loss was 61 percent higher
than prevalence among participants who had normal hearing,” and hearing
aids reduced the risk even further — 32 percent — in over 800
participants with “moderate” or “severe” hearing loss, according to the
release.
That means the risk of developing dementia after hearing
loss was reduced by nearly one-third in participants using a hearing
aid.
The researchers note that while there is a clear correlation
between hearing loss and dementia, how exactly the two are linked is
still unknown, requiring more research in the future. The study cites
previous research estimating 8 percent of dementia cases worldwide were
caused by hearing loss.
“This study refines what we’ve observed
about the link between hearing loss and dementia, and builds support for
public health action to improve hearing care access,” lead author
Alison Huang, from the department of epidemiology and the Cochlear
Center for Hearing and Public Health at the Bloomberg School, said in
the release.
Is your doctor going to inform you of this because of your increased risk of dementia? My assumption is that hearing loss really cuts down on social connections.
Your chances of getting dementia, your doctor's responsibility to prevent this.
Hearing aids can stave off dementia in hard of hearing patients for five years, a study has suggested.
A
third of over-50s who wore a hearing aid had not developed the
condition five years after they were diagnosed with mild cognitive
impairment (MCI), researchers found.
In contrast, 81 per cent of those who did not wear hearing aids were found to have dementia.
This
is the first study to investigate the link between hearing aids and
progression to dementia in individuals with MCI - those with memory
difficulties but not classified as suffering from dementia.
Some
people diagnosed with MCI will go on to develop dementia, some will
remain stable over time and a few people will improve and no longer have
any problems.
Scientists say the findings are an "important first
step" in supporting a move to encourage people with hearing loss who
are at risk of dementia to wear hearing aids.
The researchers looked at 2,114 hearing-impaired patients over the age of 50 from the National Alzheimer's Co-ordinating Centre.
The
percentage of participants who had not developed dementia five years
after their MCI diagnosis was 19 per cent for non-users of hearing aids
and 33 per cent for those using hearing aids.
Overall, using a hearing aid was associated with a slowing of the conversion from MCI to dementia by an average of two years.
Dr
Magda Bucholc, of Ulster University, said that while it might be
considered a "modest finding", the overall benefits to public health
could be significant.
"In my opinion, given there is no
disease-modifying treatment for dementia, even a small beneficial effect
of hearing loss treatment in delaying the disease can have significant
implications for public health," she said.
"In fact, studies show
that delaying the onset of dementia by even two years would have
substantial economic and societal effects."
The research was published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.
Dr
Ralph Holme, executive director of research at the national hearing
loss charity RNID, said: "It is well established that hearing loss is
associated with an increased risk of dementia, and this new research
supports the growing view that the use of hearing aids may help slow its
onset.
"Further research is needed to definitively show this, but
clearly taking early action to address your hearing loss can only be a
good thing. RNID is helping to fund vital research to understand why
hearing loss and dementia are linked."
Researchers in Australia have found that nearly all participants in a
study who used their hearing aids significantly improved their mental
ability to plan, organize information and initiate tasks. Find out more.
Wearing hearing aids may delay cognitive decline in older adults and
improve brain function, according to promising new research.
Hearing & Dementia
Cognitive decline is associated with hearing loss, which affects about
32 per cent of people aged 55 years, and more than 70 per cent of people
aged over 70 years. Hearing loss has been identified as a modifiable
risk factor for dementia.
University of Melbourne researchers have tested the use of hearing aids in almost 100 adults aged 62-82 years with hearing loss.
Participants were assessed before and 18 months after having hearing
aids fitted on their hearing, cognitive function, speech perception,
quality of life, physical activity, loneliness, mood and medical health.
After 18 months of hearing aid use, researchers found speech perception,
self-reported listening disability and quality of life had
significantly improved for participants.
Most notably, 97.3 per cent of participants in this study showed either
clinically significant improvement or stability in executive function --
their mental ability to plan, organise information and initiate tasks.
Women, in particular, showed significant improvements in working memory
-- used for reasoning and decision-making -- as well as most other
cognitive functions assessed.
The study also found more frequent use of hearing aids was associated
with greater improvements in cognitive function, and women were much
more diligent at wearing the devices than men.
University of Melbourne Associate Professor and Chief Investigator of
the study, Julia Sarant, said improvement in cognitive function is
something that is not usually seen in older adults.
"Although there are successful treatments for hearing loss, there is
currently no successful treatment for cognitive decline or dementia,"
Associate Professor Sarant said.
"This research is a positive step in investigating the treatment of hearing aids to delay cognitive decline.
"Further research is underway to compare cognitive outcomes from a
larger sample size with those of a healthy aging comparison group of
older Australians with typical hearing for their age."
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