7 ms·

Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

165 points by gardenfelder 3y ago

gardenfelder 3y ago
> Hearing aids reduced the rate of cognitive decline in older adults at high risk of dementia by almost 50% over a three-year period.
m3kw9 3y ago
Sounds like if you stimulate your brain more your brian is less likely to “atrophy”
- Night_Thastus 3y ago
  This seems to be backed up by a lot of other things. Social activity especially seems to be useful for preventing decline.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  Which to me shouldn't be that surprising given that we know neurons seek to connect with other neurons based on activation patterns, and that the brain stays plastic into old age. I've seen similar with movement. Once they break a hip or something which severely reduces their physical activity level, cognitive abilities usually go downhill fast. Part of that is probably cardio-related, but I've long thought it was related to lack of stimulus. Just doing the dishes or feeling the wind creates a ton of sensations, and may trigger memories, that sitting in a chair watching daytime TV just won't.
  - jeltz 3y ago
    I wonder if some of that could be solved via VR or even just video games. Not as good as the real thing but should be more mentally stimulating than passively watching.
    - austinjp 3y ago
      There's a ton of research into this idea, have a search on PubMed. Unfortunately it suffers from at least two problems. First, generalisable effects from specific interventions often fail to replicate, so for example subjects tend to get better at a specific task but it doesn't necessarily carry over to real-world contexts. There are a few promising potential directions, although even those results are modest and uncertain. Second, people with even mild/early signs of dementia are extremely unlikely to continue with an intervention. Even if they do they often modify it, e.g. unplugging a smart device to save energy, or taping over buttons to prevent accidentally pressing them. I would hunt out references but I'm on mobile, they shouldn't be hard to find.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    Seems like this is saying something different. If it was purely lack of hearing leads to atrophy and neural decay, then why are deaf not all just in steady decline and dying off? There must be more to it, why can't people that loose hearing later, learn sign language, and thus stay active, just like the deaf.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      > why can't people that loose hearing later, learn sign language, and thus stay active, just like the deaf. Did their friends and family learn sign language as well? People who are deaf young tend to get a social circle who can communicate with deaf people, while old people are unlikely to rebuild all of that.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Very few adults learn a new language to a high level. It can be done, but most get to the level of ordering a beer and call it good if they get alcohol. If you don't need to use the language except for a one week tour (where you are still mostly with people who speak your language) this is good enough. However if you are suddenly without ability to communicate you probably can't suddenly learn fast enough to combat decline.
magicalhippo 3y ago
Seems rather unsurprising, given what we already know of the brain. Though I guess specific studies like this is more actionable. Good thing hearing aids have become more affordable lately, from over-the-counter models to DIY style using cheap microcontrollers for developing countries.
dblohm7 3y ago
My spouse is an audiologist, and yes, she has told me (and of course her patients) this is very much a "use it or lose it" type of deal.
- loco5niner 3y ago
  Would you be willing to clarify that? Is she talking about losing cognitive abilities when someone fails to get hearing aids when they should? I'm starting to deal with some hearing issues and would like to make sure to stay on top of this issue.
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  Use what or lose it? Hearing? Cognition?
  - chaostheory 3y ago
    Most likely hearing, but that’s strongly related to cognition.
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  My understanding about human beings is always use it or lose it. So you have to keep exercising in all aspects
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sp332 3y ago
Interesting that another Lancet paper on this topic was recently retracted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38894636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38894636
- AlexErrant 3y ago
  The retracted paper discusses an association since it was observational: > We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios... between self-reported hearing aid use status (hearing loss with or without hearing aids) at baseline and risk of dementia The top-level article discusses a randomized controlled study and therefore can make a much stronger claim of causality: > The researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two interventions. About half received hearing aids and instruction in how to use them. The other half were assigned to a health education program focused on promoting healthy aging. Both groups received follow-up visits every six months to reinforce the training.
augustk 3y ago
What about people who are completely deaf since birth?
- robg 3y ago
  Different mechanisms, you’re born with ~100x the amount of neurons you’ll have as an adult, those normally used for hearing get adapted and trained on other stimuli.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  Make sure their glasses prescriptions are up to date & that they are engaged with the world (and not slipping away) too.
- wirrbel 3y ago
  I would assume they compensate with other senses and so if they get blind at high age they are at equal risk.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  There is no pre-existing neutral training in a newborn's brain. Adults who become deaf lose a stimulus that their brains are already trained to use.
wirrbel 3y ago
Isn’t that common knowledge? Or let me rephrase this: this can be observed by laypeople in their communities. I am glad that it’s also scientifically studied if the body of evidence hasn’t been large enough so far
- ben_w 3y ago
  I suspect most people think that both are caused by old age, rather than that deafness causes (or accelerates) dementia. It's not like there's a well known group of congenitally deaf people who get dementia young to inspire a causal connection. My mum started noticeably losing her hearing after her dementia symptoms got quite bad. She may well have lost her hearing sooner and we just didn't notice, just as in retrospect there were huge warning signs of dementia well before the diagnosis and we just didn't realise what we were observing.
  - joombaga 3y ago
    May I ask what the huge warning signs were?
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Thinking I was born 3 years earlier than I was. Forgetting how to read maps. Higher anxiety causing her to ask me to drive dangerously slowly, and in so doing revealing she didn't know the speed limit on that category of road. Forgetting to renew her road tax (I have no idea how she wasn't fined for that, given the rest of the family noticed this six months after it was due).
  - jdietrich 3y ago
    >It's not like there's a well known group of congenitally deaf people who get dementia young to inspire a causal connection. Hearing ability and cognitive ability are significantly correlated, independent of age. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581793/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581793/
    - 3y ago
bilsbie 3y ago
Alternate headline: people who take actions to be more social slow cognitive decline.
- jeltz 3y ago
  Yes, but this is also a very concrete solution to encourage people to take more actions.
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  It's not that simple. If you have hearing problems it can be quite difficult to be social no matter how hard you try.
waterhouse 3y ago
A randomized intervention! Huzzah! > The researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two interventions. About half received hearing aids and instruction in how to use them. The other half were assigned to a health education program focused on promoting healthy aging.
- olliecornelia 3y ago
  What are you advocating
  - waterhouse 3y ago
    I'm advocating that people do studies with randomized interventions—an approach that is capable of proving causation—and not being satisfied with purely observational studies that look at correlations, which are often hopelessly confounded and can't distinguish between "X causes Y" and "Z causes both X and Y". I was pleasantly surprised to find that this study was of the first type rather than the second.
    - hombre_fatal 3y ago
      While this take seems popular, this isn't a good way of looking at it because, in my experience, it seems to lead to the dismissal of good evidence or it suggests that we can't build confident causal inferences without a certain study. For example, RCTs are also observational, and it's incorrect to say they can uniquely detect causation. I think a more helpful way to look at research is to look for a convergence of outcomes across the evidence, like a bunch of needles of various sizes pointing in the same direction (or not) on a gauge. And where there are divergences, and there always will be, which differences in methodology can explain them.
      - waterhouse 3y ago
        > RCTs are also observational The key phrase is "purely observational". Now, occasionally you end up with a "natural experiment" in which some accident has effectively done the randomization for you—specifically, where the mechanism that puts people in the treatment group vs the control group is something you can be very confident has no other causal interactions. This was a good example: https://twitter.com/PGeldsetzer1/status/1661776663074738176 https://twitter.com/PGeldsetzer1/status/1661776663074738176 "Causal evidence that herpes zoster vaccination prevents a proportion of dementia cases [...] To provide causal as opposed to merely correlational evidence on this question, we take advantage of the fact that in Wales eligibility for the herpes zoster vaccine (Zostavax) for shingles prevention was determined based on an individual's exact date of birth. Those born before September 2 1933 were ineligible and remained ineligible for life, while those born on or after September 2 1933 were eligible to receive the vaccine." But any time you're looking at a scenario where treatment vs non-treatment was the result of individual human choices, that opens up a potentially very wide range of ways for something you didn't know about (and potentially something difficult to accurately control for even if you do know about it) to cause treatment and cause the outcome, instead of the treatment causing the outcome. > it suggests that we can't build confident causal inferences without a certain study I do think there's an upper limit to the confidence you can justifiably hold, and that it's often not very high. Consider the studies that observe "A bit of alcohol correlates with better health than zero alcohol". You control for wealth, education, and maybe other things, and the apparent effect remains. How high confidence should you have in the result? Then someone realizes: Some fraction of people who consume zero alcohol do so under doctor's orders because they have health problems, and if you exclude those people then the effect disappears. No matter how many causal pathways you think you've controlled for, how confident can you really be that there isn't a new one you haven't thought of? (And controlling has its own perils: if your measurements are noisy, or if you end up controlling for the outcome.) > it's incorrect to say they can uniquely detect causation Oh, correlational studies can "detect" causation, but the hard part is being certain that the thing detected isn't a false positive.
aksss 3y ago
Wait, isn’t the retraction of this old news by now? “We should have followed up’: Lancet journal retracts article on hearing aids and dementia after prodding” https://retractionwatch.com/2024/01/04/we-should-have-followed-up-lancet-journal-retracts-article-on-hearing-aids-and-dementia-after-prodding/ https://retractionwatch.com/2024/01/04/we-should-have-follow... “When the paper first appeared, it seemed to confirm a widely held belief – that hearing loss is associated with developing dementia, and using hearing aids can help to reduce risk – about which the scientific evidence has been mixed, Blustein, the hearing loss researcher, told Retraction Watch. In her view, public health messaging and media coverage of the question has been “misleading.” The findings were picked up quickly and disseminated among the community of people following the question of hearing loss and dementia, she said. “I don’t think people are necessarily aware of retractions.” Another pull quote: “Most notably, he found that hearing aid use did not correspond to a lower rate of dementia for people with hearing loss, as the authors reported. He found the opposite: among people with hearing loss, the dementia rate was higher for those using hearing aids.”
- sp332 3y ago
  That one was from UK BioBank data and published in April. This one is from John Hopkins in the USA and was published in July.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    [dead]
  - aksss 3y ago
    In context, I would be careful taking this conclusion at face value quite yet, though it does seem intuitive, just as the other one was. “About 250 healthy older adults came from a long-term study of heart health … 739 people were newly recruited. . . . Participants recruited from the heart-health study had more risk factors for developing dementia, including being older and having faster rates of cognitive decline than those from the general community. In the main analysis of all study participants, the researchers saw no difference in the rate of change in cognitive functioning between people who received the hearing aids and those who didn’t. However, when the analysis focused on people from the heart-health study, who had a higher risk of dementia, the benefit of the hearing aids was substantial. Those who received hearing aids had an almost 50% reduction in the rate of cognitive decline.”
Vicinity9635 3y ago
Fun fact: auditory signals are the fastest path to human reflexes, way faster than vision. I forget the exact numbers, but visual reactions are on the order of 300ms whereas auditory reactions are sub 100 IIRC. Feel free to correct me if anyone can find numbers. So all those blind fights in the matrix cartoons or daredevil are sill, but not quite as silly as you might have expected. There is actually a significant reaction time advantage. But good look hearing a sword swing at your face vs your leg lol
- gpt5 3y ago
  There is a difference, but not that dramatic. You can try it on yourself here - https://playback.fm/audio-reaction-time https://playback.fm/audio-reaction-time
  - Vicinity9635 3y ago
    There's a lot more between the actions there image to display, mouse to computer that have nothing to do with internal meatbag reactions. Especially when we're already measuring in milliseconds.
    - gpt5 3y ago
      I'm referring to the paper cited in the linked site, which quotes about 50ms of difference in reaction time between auditory and visual, not 200ms like stated in the comment above.
nyrikki 3y ago
As social isolation was associated with about a 50% increased risk of dementia this isn't surprising. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25663/social-isolation-and-loneliness-in-older-adults-opportunities-for-the https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25663/social-isola...
- Overtonwindow 3y ago
  Makes you wonder if social isolation is a cause of dementia, thinking less means less brain stimulation.
mrangle 3y ago
Deaf-infant cochlear implants can make a significant difference in IQ (less language audio input affects IQ if not mitigated ASAP: a principle that extends from deaf to normal hearing children). With this principle in mind, it isn't surprising that hearing aids slow cognitive decline later in life. Though, I'm not implying that it may be a 1:1 mechanism.
blendo 3y ago
A bit off topic, but do Apple Airpod Pro provide benefits to those with mild hearing loss? I find Transparency mode with Conversation Awareness helps me hear words more clearly among groups of people, even though my hearing is fine.
- mbirth 3y ago
  Download the app “Mimi Hearing Test”. It allows you to do a quick test using your AirPods. And the results you can upload in your iPhone’s accessibility settings. So the phone will increase frequencies you don’t hear well. You can also set a general amplification. So, yes, I’d very much think AirPods can be of benefit here.
  - rpozarickij 3y ago
    > increase frequencies you don’t hear well Wouldn't that make you less sensitive to those frequencies and thus speed up the worsening of the hearing issues?
- skybrian 3y ago
  I'm sure it would help, but in my experience, I don't find them a replacement for hearing aids. I have tried this a bit with first-generation Airpod Pros. Wearing them for a long time is annoying, in part due to battery life. But they are much better than hearing aids for recorded music, so I swap between my hearing aids and airpods depending on what I'm doing. They are optimized for different things.
violetwholt939 3y ago
[flagged]

165 points by gardenfelder 3y ago

> Hearing aids reduced the rate of cognitive decline in older adults at high risk of dementia by almost 50% over a three-year period.

m3kw9 3y ago

Sounds like if you stimulate your brain more your brian is less likely to “atrophy”

Night_Thastus 3y ago
This seems to be backed up by a lot of other things. Social activity especially seems to be useful for preventing decline.
magicalhippo 3y ago
Which to me shouldn't be that surprising given that we know neurons seek to connect with other neurons based on activation patterns, and that the brain stays plastic into old age. I've seen similar with movement. Once they break a hip or something which severely reduces their physical activity level, cognitive abilities usually go downhill fast. Part of that is probably cardio-related, but I've long thought it was related to lack of stimulus. Just doing the dishes or feeling the wind creates a ton of sensations, and may trigger memories, that sitting in a chair watching daytime TV just won't.
- jeltz 3y ago
  I wonder if some of that could be solved via VR or even just video games. Not as good as the real thing but should be more mentally stimulating than passively watching.
  - austinjp 3y ago
    There's a ton of research into this idea, have a search on PubMed. Unfortunately it suffers from at least two problems. First, generalisable effects from specific interventions often fail to replicate, so for example subjects tend to get better at a specific task but it doesn't necessarily carry over to real-world contexts. There are a few promising potential directions, although even those results are modest and uncertain. Second, people with even mild/early signs of dementia are extremely unlikely to continue with an intervention. Even if they do they often modify it, e.g. unplugging a smart device to save energy, or taping over buttons to prevent accidentally pressing them. I would hunt out references but I'm on mobile, they shouldn't be hard to find.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Seems like this is saying something different. If it was purely lack of hearing leads to atrophy and neural decay, then why are deaf not all just in steady decline and dying off? There must be more to it, why can't people that loose hearing later, learn sign language, and thus stay active, just like the deaf.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    > why can't people that loose hearing later, learn sign language, and thus stay active, just like the deaf. Did their friends and family learn sign language as well? People who are deaf young tend to get a social circle who can communicate with deaf people, while old people are unlikely to rebuild all of that.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Very few adults learn a new language to a high level. It can be done, but most get to the level of ordering a beer and call it good if they get alcohol. If you don't need to use the language except for a one week tour (where you are still mostly with people who speak your language) this is good enough. However if you are suddenly without ability to communicate you probably can't suddenly learn fast enough to combat decline.

magicalhippo 3y ago

Seems rather unsurprising, given what we already know of the brain. Though I guess specific studies like this is more actionable. Good thing hearing aids have become more affordable lately, from over-the-counter models to DIY style using cheap microcontrollers for developing countries.

dblohm7 3y ago

My spouse is an audiologist, and yes, she has told me (and of course her patients) this is very much a "use it or lose it" type of deal.

loco5niner 3y ago
Would you be willing to clarify that? Is she talking about losing cognitive abilities when someone fails to get hearing aids when they should? I'm starting to deal with some hearing issues and would like to make sure to stay on top of this issue.
TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
Use what or lose it? Hearing? Cognition?
- chaostheory 3y ago
  Most likely hearing, but that’s strongly related to cognition.
gloryjulio 3y ago
My understanding about human beings is always use it or lose it. So you have to keep exercising in all aspects

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sp332 3y ago

Interesting that another Lancet paper on this topic was recently retracted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38894636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38894636

AlexErrant 3y ago
The retracted paper discusses an association since it was observational: > We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios... between self-reported hearing aid use status (hearing loss with or without hearing aids) at baseline and risk of dementia The top-level article discusses a randomized controlled study and therefore can make a much stronger claim of causality: > The researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two interventions. About half received hearing aids and instruction in how to use them. The other half were assigned to a health education program focused on promoting healthy aging. Both groups received follow-up visits every six months to reinforce the training.

augustk 3y ago

What about people who are completely deaf since birth?

robg 3y ago
Different mechanisms, you’re born with ~100x the amount of neurons you’ll have as an adult, those normally used for hearing get adapted and trained on other stimuli.
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
Make sure their glasses prescriptions are up to date & that they are engaged with the world (and not slipping away) too.
wirrbel 3y ago
I would assume they compensate with other senses and so if they get blind at high age they are at equal risk.
thomastjeffery 3y ago
There is no pre-existing neutral training in a newborn's brain. Adults who become deaf lose a stimulus that their brains are already trained to use.

wirrbel 3y ago

Isn’t that common knowledge? Or let me rephrase this: this can be observed by laypeople in their communities. I am glad that it’s also scientifically studied if the body of evidence hasn’t been large enough so far

ben_w 3y ago
I suspect most people think that both are caused by old age, rather than that deafness causes (or accelerates) dementia. It's not like there's a well known group of congenitally deaf people who get dementia young to inspire a causal connection. My mum started noticeably losing her hearing after her dementia symptoms got quite bad. She may well have lost her hearing sooner and we just didn't notice, just as in retrospect there were huge warning signs of dementia well before the diagnosis and we just didn't realise what we were observing.
- joombaga 3y ago
  May I ask what the huge warning signs were?
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Thinking I was born 3 years earlier than I was. Forgetting how to read maps. Higher anxiety causing her to ask me to drive dangerously slowly, and in so doing revealing she didn't know the speed limit on that category of road. Forgetting to renew her road tax (I have no idea how she wasn't fined for that, given the rest of the family noticed this six months after it was due).
- jdietrich 3y ago
  >It's not like there's a well known group of congenitally deaf people who get dementia young to inspire a causal connection. Hearing ability and cognitive ability are significantly correlated, independent of age. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581793/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581793/
  - 3y ago

bilsbie 3y ago

Alternate headline: people who take actions to be more social slow cognitive decline.

jeltz 3y ago
Yes, but this is also a very concrete solution to encourage people to take more actions.
rqtwteye 3y ago
It's not that simple. If you have hearing problems it can be quite difficult to be social no matter how hard you try.

waterhouse 3y ago

A randomized intervention! Huzzah! > The researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two interventions. About half received hearing aids and instruction in how to use them. The other half were assigned to a health education program focused on promoting healthy aging.

olliecornelia 3y ago
What are you advocating
- waterhouse 3y ago
  I'm advocating that people do studies with randomized interventions—an approach that is capable of proving causation—and not being satisfied with purely observational studies that look at correlations, which are often hopelessly confounded and can't distinguish between "X causes Y" and "Z causes both X and Y". I was pleasantly surprised to find that this study was of the first type rather than the second.
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    While this take seems popular, this isn't a good way of looking at it because, in my experience, it seems to lead to the dismissal of good evidence or it suggests that we can't build confident causal inferences without a certain study. For example, RCTs are also observational, and it's incorrect to say they can uniquely detect causation. I think a more helpful way to look at research is to look for a convergence of outcomes across the evidence, like a bunch of needles of various sizes pointing in the same direction (or not) on a gauge. And where there are divergences, and there always will be, which differences in methodology can explain them.
    - waterhouse 3y ago
      > RCTs are also observational The key phrase is "purely observational". Now, occasionally you end up with a "natural experiment" in which some accident has effectively done the randomization for you—specifically, where the mechanism that puts people in the treatment group vs the control group is something you can be very confident has no other causal interactions. This was a good example: https://twitter.com/PGeldsetzer1/status/1661776663074738176 https://twitter.com/PGeldsetzer1/status/1661776663074738176 "Causal evidence that herpes zoster vaccination prevents a proportion of dementia cases [...] To provide causal as opposed to merely correlational evidence on this question, we take advantage of the fact that in Wales eligibility for the herpes zoster vaccine (Zostavax) for shingles prevention was determined based on an individual's exact date of birth. Those born before September 2 1933 were ineligible and remained ineligible for life, while those born on or after September 2 1933 were eligible to receive the vaccine." But any time you're looking at a scenario where treatment vs non-treatment was the result of individual human choices, that opens up a potentially very wide range of ways for something you didn't know about (and potentially something difficult to accurately control for even if you do know about it) to cause treatment and cause the outcome, instead of the treatment causing the outcome. > it suggests that we can't build confident causal inferences without a certain study I do think there's an upper limit to the confidence you can justifiably hold, and that it's often not very high. Consider the studies that observe "A bit of alcohol correlates with better health than zero alcohol". You control for wealth, education, and maybe other things, and the apparent effect remains. How high confidence should you have in the result? Then someone realizes: Some fraction of people who consume zero alcohol do so under doctor's orders because they have health problems, and if you exclude those people then the effect disappears. No matter how many causal pathways you think you've controlled for, how confident can you really be that there isn't a new one you haven't thought of? (And controlling has its own perils: if your measurements are noisy, or if you end up controlling for the outcome.) > it's incorrect to say they can uniquely detect causation Oh, correlational studies can "detect" causation, but the hard part is being certain that the thing detected isn't a false positive.

aksss 3y ago

Wait, isn’t the retraction of this old news by now? “We should have followed up’: Lancet journal retracts article on hearing aids and dementia after prodding” https://retractionwatch.com/2024/01/04/we-should-have-followed-up-lancet-journal-retracts-article-on-hearing-aids-and-dementia-after-prodding/ https://retractionwatch.com/2024/01/04/we-should-have-follow... “When the paper first appeared, it seemed to confirm a widely held belief – that hearing loss is associated with developing dementia, and using hearing aids can help to reduce risk – about which the scientific evidence has been mixed, Blustein, the hearing loss researcher, told Retraction Watch. In her view, public health messaging and media coverage of the question has been “misleading.” The findings were picked up quickly and disseminated among the community of people following the question of hearing loss and dementia, she said. “I don’t think people are necessarily aware of retractions.” Another pull quote: “Most notably, he found that hearing aid use did not correspond to a lower rate of dementia for people with hearing loss, as the authors reported. He found the opposite: among people with hearing loss, the dementia rate was higher for those using hearing aids.”

sp332 3y ago
That one was from UK BioBank data and published in April. This one is from John Hopkins in the USA and was published in July.
- dylan604 3y ago
  [dead]
- aksss 3y ago
  In context, I would be careful taking this conclusion at face value quite yet, though it does seem intuitive, just as the other one was. “About 250 healthy older adults came from a long-term study of heart health … 739 people were newly recruited. . . . Participants recruited from the heart-health study had more risk factors for developing dementia, including being older and having faster rates of cognitive decline than those from the general community. In the main analysis of all study participants, the researchers saw no difference in the rate of change in cognitive functioning between people who received the hearing aids and those who didn’t. However, when the analysis focused on people from the heart-health study, who had a higher risk of dementia, the benefit of the hearing aids was substantial. Those who received hearing aids had an almost 50% reduction in the rate of cognitive decline.”

Vicinity9635 3y ago

Fun fact: auditory signals are the fastest path to human reflexes, way faster than vision. I forget the exact numbers, but visual reactions are on the order of 300ms whereas auditory reactions are sub 100 IIRC. Feel free to correct me if anyone can find numbers. So all those blind fights in the matrix cartoons or daredevil are sill, but not quite as silly as you might have expected. There is actually a significant reaction time advantage. But good look hearing a sword swing at your face vs your leg lol

gpt5 3y ago
There is a difference, but not that dramatic. You can try it on yourself here - https://playback.fm/audio-reaction-time https://playback.fm/audio-reaction-time
- Vicinity9635 3y ago
  There's a lot more between the actions there image to display, mouse to computer that have nothing to do with internal meatbag reactions. Especially when we're already measuring in milliseconds.
  - gpt5 3y ago
    I'm referring to the paper cited in the linked site, which quotes about 50ms of difference in reaction time between auditory and visual, not 200ms like stated in the comment above.

nyrikki 3y ago

As social isolation was associated with about a 50% increased risk of dementia this isn't surprising. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25663/social-isolation-and-loneliness-in-older-adults-opportunities-for-the https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25663/social-isola...

Overtonwindow 3y ago
Makes you wonder if social isolation is a cause of dementia, thinking less means less brain stimulation.

mrangle 3y ago

Deaf-infant cochlear implants can make a significant difference in IQ (less language audio input affects IQ if not mitigated ASAP: a principle that extends from deaf to normal hearing children). With this principle in mind, it isn't surprising that hearing aids slow cognitive decline later in life. Though, I'm not implying that it may be a 1:1 mechanism.

blendo 3y ago

A bit off topic, but do Apple Airpod Pro provide benefits to those with mild hearing loss? I find Transparency mode with Conversation Awareness helps me hear words more clearly among groups of people, even though my hearing is fine.

mbirth 3y ago
Download the app “Mimi Hearing Test”. It allows you to do a quick test using your AirPods. And the results you can upload in your iPhone’s accessibility settings. So the phone will increase frequencies you don’t hear well. You can also set a general amplification. So, yes, I’d very much think AirPods can be of benefit here.
- rpozarickij 3y ago
  > increase frequencies you don’t hear well Wouldn't that make you less sensitive to those frequencies and thus speed up the worsening of the hearing issues?
skybrian 3y ago
I'm sure it would help, but in my experience, I don't find them a replacement for hearing aids. I have tried this a bit with first-generation Airpod Pros. Wearing them for a long time is annoying, in part due to battery life. But they are much better than hearing aids for recorded music, so I swap between my hearing aids and airpods depending on what I'm doing. They are optimized for different things.

violetwholt939 3y ago

[flagged]