Dementia and hearing loss

Care for your hearing

Dementia can feel like a difficult subject to talk about, but many of us will be affected by it at some point in our lives, either directly or indirectly.

But there are steps you can take in mid-life to reduce your risk of developing dementia later on. And one of the most impactful changes is to maintain a healthy and engaged lifestyle.  Treating hearing loss enables you to stay connected to your loved ones and helps you to keep being you.

A great place to start is with our online hearing test. It’s free, only takes about five minutes and we’ll email you your results straight away. Although it can’t replace a full, thorough hearing test with one of our hearing care experts, it will give you a general idea of how well you can hear.

Take our online hearing test

The incidence of dementia is associated with the level of hearing loss.

• Mild hearing loss doubles the risk of dementia
• Moderate hearing loss triples the risk of dementia 
• Severe hearing loss increases the risk of dementia of up to five times that of those who don't have a loss.⁷ 

How is hearing loss linked to dementia?

Although the connection is not completely understood, there are a few possibilities that could explain the link.

It could be that when we struggle to hear, we fill in the gaps – but this puts extra strain on our brains at the expense of other faculties, like thinking or memory.

It’s also possible that the social isolation caused by hearing loss means that people who struggle to hear don’t keep their brain as active or as engaged as those with busy social lives.

And it’s also been suggested that hearing loss may even cause an ageing brain to shrink more quickly.⁸

According to John Hopkins University, “all three theories suggest that treating hearing loss with something as simple as using a hearing aid could directly modify or affect those pathways and reduce the risk of cognitive decline.” 

The Lancet study states that, “The observational evidence of the benefits of hearing aids for dementia risk is increasing” meaning that although further research is needed, there is increasing evidence that hearing aids could help prevent cognitive decline.

Research into whether hearing aid use can help reduce the risk is ongoing⁶, but one thing is clear: taking action on your hearing loss is risk free. You have absolutely nothing to lose by getting your hearing checked and any hearing loss treated.