Over the past few years, the connection between hearing and neurological health has been increasingly established, and the potential for private hearing aids to help slow the rate of dementia has been exceptionally promising.
However, beyond this specific link, there have also been studies that have explored the potential for hearing aids to help more broadly with memory.
There is one study in particular that has generated a lot of interest, which found a link between the use of hearing aids and improved memory, cognitive function and conversational skills.
With studies like this, it is important to know fully what the study says, what it does not say, and what you should do if you are thinking about the ways in which hearing loss might be affecting you.
What Does The Hearing Loss Memory Study Suggest?
The study itself, published in the Brazilian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology, tested a sample of people who had just been prescribed hearing aids.
They were given tests to determine their cognitive function, verbal fluency, mood and how hearing loss had affected their life.
What was remarkable about the study is that it showed a significant improvement in one particular test, the ‘Mini-Mental State Exam’ used as a measure of cognitive function.
The average score of this particular test increased from 23.4 to 24.8 after just six months of using hearing aids, with further increases after a year.
Similarly, verbal fluency tests, which test how many words of a certain category a person can say in a minute, increased from 11 to 14.
Finally, a test to draw clocks also showed improvement, with scores increasing from 7.4 to 8.5.
How Do Hearing Aids Help Memory?
Hearing is both a physical and mental process, not only relying on the physical health of the ear itself but also how sounds and aural stimuli are processed by the language centres of the brain.
The quieter the sound, the harder the brain has to work, and this greater mental load can lead to mental fatigue.
If you are spending more time focusing on hearing, other parts of your brain will dedicate energy to helping this, which can hurt your memory and cognitive function over time.
What Does The Study Not Tell Us About Hearing Aids And Memory?
It has been reported in some places, most notably by Women’s World, in ways that imply that hearing aids help provide a meaningful improvement to memory and thinking.
Whilst hearing aids are vital for long-term hearing health, mental health and cognitive health, the study’s overall improvements were primarily seen in people with an average age of 73.9 who had already seen a decline in cognitive health.
The participants in the study who had no medical history of cognitive decline, such as that typically associated with dementia, only saw improvement in the verbal fluency test, and even then to a much lower degree.
As well as this, only 56 people took part in the study, which leads to the issues commonly associated with small sample sizes and whether their findings apply to a wider population.
Whilst hearing aids are still extremely important and can help slow the progression of conditions such as dementia, far more data is needed to see how much they can help with neurological health.