After a couple years of my wife telling me I should probably get my hearing tested, I finally did. The audiologist reported that I had some high-frequency hearing loss, but that I was in the range considered “marginal” for needing hearing aids.
My point of concern is the research that shows a clear connection between age related hearing loss and dementia (1)(2). Having had a brain injury in the past, I’m already considered high risk for dementia in my later years (3). Adding hearing loss to my list of dementia risks doesn’t feel like a good idea, so I decided to go ahead and get hearing aids.
The Pros…
The first thing I noticed was how different things sound. I have normal hearing in the low to midrange frequencies, but I realize now just how much I was missing in the high frequencies. I’m hearing more like I did when I was younger (and before all the rock concerts I attended). The world sounds so different, voices sound different, my truck sounds different, even my keyboard sounds different. But the key difference is that I am once again hearing everything that I should be hearing.
A big area of difference in what I hear is with speech. This is one of the important benefits for several reasons. Among the changes is that I’m asking, “What?” a lot less. It’s not that I wasn’t hearing people talk, it’s that I wasn’t hearing all the frequencies involved in speech. We use lower and middle frequencies for vowel sounds, but consonants are comprised of higher frequency sounds. This means that some words may be hard to tell from one another.
But beyond our ability to communicate in the here and now, high-frequency hearing loss can contribute to a gradual loss of auditory discrimination. This refers to our brain’s ability to differentiate one sound from another, especially with the sounds involved in speech. The problem here is that a long-term reduction of auditory stimulation in the areas of the brain responsible for discrimination results in a gradual loss of our ability to discriminate. Therefore, we may reach a point where even with hearing aids, we are unable to tell the difference between words like key, tea, sea, and fee.
This is further complicated by the fact that when we don’t understand what’s being said, we tend to exclude ourselves from conversations. Some people even exclude themselves from social situations entirely. This exclusion means that our brains aren’t receiving normal stimulation, which is a significant factor contributing to the onset of dementia.
So, my pros are in two primary areas. First, I’m hearing so much that I was missing before (and didn’t even know I was missing it). Next, I’ve taken a very important preventative measure in one of the few controllable issues that can lead to dementia. There are other things as well, like the fact that modern hearing aids have Bluetooth connectivity, so I can listen to my audiobooks anywhere and take calls using my hearing aids.
The Cons…
Of course, there is one change that falls into this category. I have struggled with overstimulation since right after my brain injury. Loud and chaotic environments are already difficult. As I’ve written previously, I carry ear plugs on my key chain so that I always have them with me. Normally, when we go into a loud environment such as a restaurant, the first thing I do is don my ear plugs. But now, I’m wearing hearing aids that are amplifying some of those sounds. It’s not that I can’t use my earplugs, but I’d need to first remove my hearing aids and put them in their travel case.
We went to a local bistro the last couple of weekends for their acai bowls. Because they serve morning mimosas as well, it can get very loud there. I really want to adjust to using my hearing aids, so I opened the hearing aid app on my phone to review the available settings. I found that I can fine tune what I hear in several ways. I have a noise reduction setting that I can set to reduce background noises, and there’s a setting to decrease the volume of sharp or loud sounds. I can even change the focal point behaviors, adjusting it to focus directly in front of me or to have a wide focus that brings in the surroundings. And of course, there’s the good old volume setting. Finally, if none of that makes the noise tolerable, I can always remove them and put in my ear plugs.
Other effects in the “cons” column are the many things that cause noise from my hearing aids. Wind can sometimes create the type of noise that you’d expect from wind blowing on a microphone. This can happen from strong winds, while riding my bike, or even when the car window is open. Another cause of noise is when the hearing aids move or when I touch them. For example, when I adjust my glasses, they often touch my hearing aids. These noises are gentle and not bothersome at all, but it’s certainly something I notice.
The only other thing I can think of as a con at this point is needing to bring my hearing aid travel case along if I will need to remove them for any reason. So, if we are going to the beach and I may be getting wet, I need to have a safe place to put them. Marcie bought us some small dry bags for just this reason.
My Conclusions…
Being able to hear better really is a good thing. But more importantly, from my perspective, I’m doing something that reduces my risk of developing dementia in my later years. Because I am again hearing everything I should be hearing, all the areas of my brain responsible for processing this information are engaged.
I was a caregiver for my mother who suffered from dementia in her final years. This is not something I want to go through or to have my family go through. Removing hearing loss from the equation means that I reduce my risk of dementia, and that alone is reason enough to wear my hearing aids every day.
References
- Alexander Chern, MD and Justin S. Golub, MD, MS, (2020), Age-Related Hearing Loss and Dementia
- Chin-Mei Liu, PhD, and Charles Tzu-Chi Lee, PhD, (2019), Association of Hearing Loss with Dementia
- Yanjun Li, Yongming Li, Xiaotao Li, Shuang Zhang, Jincheng Zhao, Xiaofeng Zhu, and Guozhong Tian, (2017), Head Injury as a Risk Factor for Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 32 Observational Studies
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