Johns Hopkins Medicine. After 12 years of studying it, researchers found that there was a considerable effect on brain health in adults with minor to severe hearing loss. For example:
- The chance of getting dementia is doubled in people with only minor hearing loss
- Somebody with moderate hearing loss triples their chance of getting dementia
- A person with a extreme hearing impairment has five times the chance of getting dementia
The study reveals that the brain atrophies at a faster pace when a person suffers from hearing loss. The brain is put under stress that can lead to damage because it has to work harder to do things like maintaining balance.
Also, quality of life is affected. A person who can’t hear very well is more likely to feel anxiety and stress. Depression is also more likely. All these things add up to higher medical costs.
The Newest Study
The newest research published November in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows that it becomes a budget breaker if you choose not to take care of your loss of hearing. This research was also led by experts from Johns Hopkins in collaboration with AARP, the University of California San Francisco and Optum Labs.
77,000 to 150,000 patients who had untreated hearing loss were analyzed. People with normal hearing created 26 percent less health care expenses than people who were recently diagnosed with hearing loss.
As time goes by, this amount continues to grow. Over a ten year period, healthcare expenses go up by 46 percent. Those figures, when broken down, average $22,434 per person.
Some factors that are involved in the increase are:
- Depression
- Dementia
- Falls
- Lower quality of life
- Cognitive decline
A second companion study done by Bloomberg School indicates a link between untreated hearing loss and higher mortality. They also uncovered that people with untreated hearing loss also suffered from:
- 6.9 more diagnoses of depression
- 3.6 more falls
- 3.2 more diagnoses of dementia per 100 over the course of 10 years
Those stats correlate with the study by Johns Hopkins.
Hearing Loss is Increasing
According to the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders:
- Approximately 2 percent of people aged 45 to 54 are noticeably deaf
- Around 15 percent of young people 18 years old have trouble hearing
- Hearing loss is common in 55 to 64 year olds at a rate of 8.5 percent
- Currently, two to three of every 1,000 children has hearing loss
For those aged 64 to 74 the number goes up to 25 percent and for people over 74 it rises to 50 percent. Over time, those figures are expected to rise. As many as 38 million people in this country may have hearing loss by 2060.
The research doesn’t touch on how wearing hearing aids can change these numbers, though. What is recognized is that some health issues associated with hearing loss can be decreased by using hearing aids. Further studies are required to determine if using hearing aids reduces the cost of healthcare. It’s safe to say there are more reasons to use them than not to. Schedule an appointment with a hearing care professional to see if hearing aids help you.
