DR MARTIN SCURR: How losing your hearing may cause dementia - and the 12 steps you can take to ward it off By Dr Martin Scurr Published: 06:56 EDT, 20 May 2024 | Updated: 06:56 EDT, 20 May 2024 e-mail 1 View comments Q: You said in a column last month that poor hearing is linked to dementia risk. Could you please explain why this should be so? Howard Ashton, Blackwood, S. Wales.
Dr Martin Scurr replies: Thank you for asking this valuable question which will be of interest and concern to many. Dementia is a disorder of the brain that affects memory and other key functions, such as how people use language and communicate, spatial awareness — the ability to judge distances, for instance — and the processes that enable us to plan, pay attention and juggle tasks. Around 40 per cent of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by addressing 12 key risk factors, including: high blood pressure; obesity; diabetes ; depression ; physical inactivity; smoking; social isolation — and hearing (according to a 2020 report on dementia prevention from the Lancet Commission).
The link between hearing loss and dementia has been confirmed by several major studies. One of these involved almost 2,000 people who started out with no signs of cognitive impairment: they were then monitored for 11 years — and those who had hearing loss at the start of the study had increased levels of cognitive impairment by the end. Some experts believe that the social isolation brought about by lo.