Deans' stroke musings: Hearing Aids May Delay Cognitive Decline

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective 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.

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.

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Hearing Aids May Delay Cognitive Decline

Is this one of the tests your doctor is performing to ensure you don't get cognitive decline after your stroke?

Hearing Aids May Delay Cognitive Decline

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."

More at link.