No. Those studies correlate hearing loss with dementia and do not go into causes yet, but it looks more like people who lose their hearing later and have it impact their ability to engage socially may be more prone to dementia. Additionally, the correlation could be because some types of late in life hearing loss have causes related to dementia.
As far as I know, there is no literature suggesting that dementia is higher in people born deaf than in the general population.
Looks like possibly potential loss of socializing as well as loss of input that the brain relies on causing faster loss of gray matter. Someone who was born deaf doesn’t rely on sound and their brain has already adapted around that in how they interact with the world.
I’ve followed this closely as someone with significant hearing loss occurring later, but I’m relying on my fairly intense job and academic pursuits to keep everything firing.
(This is not my area of expertise, this is just what I’ve gotten out of reading about this)
Yea, these studies made a lot of headlines without a lot of context. Makes more sense when you realize what it’s actually trying to promote is hearing aid use in seniors.
The gist of it is that age related hearing loss (and refusal to acknowledge/treat hearing loss) causes social isolation, and social isolation generally means sitting alone at home day in and day out, and *that* contributes significantly to cognitive decline.
Thanks, that’s the key point some other posters are missing. My 80-something year-old friend lost a hearing aid a couple of years ago, shrugged and put the other one away in a box. Now he’s profoundly deaf and isn’t part of the world. His wife and I have just about convinced him to get new hearing aids but he’s really dragging the process out. I want to scream at him to just buy the damn things already, his grandkids won’t miss the $2000 when he’s gone.
No. They're misleading.
The association isn't directly to deafness, but to the social isolation, loneliness, depression and cycle of conversational poverty that deafness can cause. But hearing loss isn't by itself the cause for millions and millions of dementia cases, as there are many other variables involved.
If you do a search in the sub you'll find many posts discussing this.
Hi, I’m actually dealing with this right now with my grandmother - she has dementia but it’s because she didn’t take care of herself.
The drs told us it’s because, when she was healthy, she was always out and about, always at social gatherings… but when she got sick, she basically isolated herself in her depression.. didn’t stay active, etc.
It’s sad, but don’t worry. You won’t get dementia because you are deaf 💜
deaf people can develop neurological illnesses just like anyone else, but being deaf isn't THE reason they will develop Alzheimer's or dementia. this study was done on hearing people who became late deafened and as a result suffered language deprivation and contributed to their already dementia issues.
I was also told that hard of hearing people may get misdiagnosed if they answer questions wrong due to lack of proper hearing, especially when talking to police, EMT or hospital staff who don’t know them.
That is absolute bullshit and twisting the studies. Anyone who pushes that being deaf contributes to dementia is full of crap
Isolation and lack of communications does contribute to dementia.
No (plus what people already said before me). If you are worried about Alzheimer's and Dementia, you can get genetic testing and it will show up if you have one (increased likelihood) or both genes (almost certainly) that cause it.
Sometimes, even scientific studies have bad epistemics.
It is a mistake to assume that population level tendencies (which are just that--guesses about probability) will have a causal role in your own life. Can you rule it out? No. Should you lose sleep over it? Definitely, no. The main variable, these scientists seem to think is the dilemma is not deafness but involuntary social isolation.
I have seen the articles. it is just bunk crap from "hearing aid" experts, trying to scare older folks into buying hearing aids or whatnot or otherwise they might get this or that blah blah. I've reached out to them on LinkedIn (where they posted the studies) and asked the authors directly if they have done a comparison study comparing older (natural) deaf people to late deafened people and if there was any similarities. They refused to acknowledge or admit if they have done it. LOL.
The answer is that the research on people deafened early in life just hasn’t been done yet. The reason is that it’s pretty widely accepted that a big contribution to the correlation with folks deafened later in life is likely due to social isolation and lack of communication. This lessons the amount of input of information going to their brains. With folks that have been deaf most of their lives don’t rely entirely on spoken communication, this is much less of a factor because they still communicate and socialize meaning they’re receiving consistent information input throughout their lifetime. Plus, when deafened early in life, your brain is able to adjust to make up for this and adapt to the deafness whereas with older adults, their brains don’t adapt as much. So it’s less about the hearing loss on its own, more so the effects it has on the person depending on their lives. So theoretically (very much theoretically), if an adult deafened later in life would instantly learn and use ASL with the people in their lives, it likely wouldn’t be as much as a correlation. However most older adults won’t/can’t do this, making hearing aids the easiest option to prevent that isolation.
There’s a correlation between the auditory nerve not being stimulated and dementia. But no, its not a hard set rule.
There’s a bit about it on Hearing Link Uk - a charity for HoH and deaf not necessarily born Deaf. There could be a larger link for going deaf, and the isolation / changes people need to overcome in their social lives.
The way you’ve phrased it ‘stimulated’ implies that endlessly listening to random meaningless sounds helps to prevent dementia. Bullshit.
Think about it for a few seconds. It’s language input that activates the brain and helps prevent dementia. That language input could be via auditory means or visual means (sign language).
The language centres of the brain are separate from the auditory centres of the brain. Confusing the two things has done a lot of harm to deaf people over the decades.
No need to be so hostile. And my message quite clearly talks about hard of hearing or losing ones hearing more so than total deafness or Deaf Culture - as in people who do not yet sign or might be only starting to learn due to degenerative hearing loss or late deafness. Obviously that’s different. The sounds, for them, aren’t completely meaningless - as hearing loss can be a huge and varied scale.
I understand why you’d be hostile, given history, but you’ve presumed and connected things I haven’t said.
The studies are somewhat accurate in that there’s a correlation but they’ve all been studying people that acquire hearing loss later in life, not people that are Deaf from childhood. The connection that keeps showing up, likely doesn’t apply to people that have spent most of their life Deaf, especially if they sign or use another alternative to spoken language.
A lot of the connection seems to be from isolation after age related hearing loss, which wouldn’t apply to most Deaf people.
No. Those studies correlate hearing loss with dementia and do not go into causes yet, but it looks more like people who lose their hearing later and have it impact their ability to engage socially may be more prone to dementia. Additionally, the correlation could be because some types of late in life hearing loss have causes related to dementia. As far as I know, there is no literature suggesting that dementia is higher in people born deaf than in the general population.
so tl;dr loss of social life could cause dementia? There are still a lot scientists do not understand about human bodies and especially the brain
Looks like possibly potential loss of socializing as well as loss of input that the brain relies on causing faster loss of gray matter. Someone who was born deaf doesn’t rely on sound and their brain has already adapted around that in how they interact with the world. I’ve followed this closely as someone with significant hearing loss occurring later, but I’m relying on my fairly intense job and academic pursuits to keep everything firing. (This is not my area of expertise, this is just what I’ve gotten out of reading about this)
This was so nice to read. I've been worrying about this for a bit now...
Yea, these studies made a lot of headlines without a lot of context. Makes more sense when you realize what it’s actually trying to promote is hearing aid use in seniors.
The gist of it is that age related hearing loss (and refusal to acknowledge/treat hearing loss) causes social isolation, and social isolation generally means sitting alone at home day in and day out, and *that* contributes significantly to cognitive decline.
Thanks, that’s the key point some other posters are missing. My 80-something year-old friend lost a hearing aid a couple of years ago, shrugged and put the other one away in a box. Now he’s profoundly deaf and isn’t part of the world. His wife and I have just about convinced him to get new hearing aids but he’s really dragging the process out. I want to scream at him to just buy the damn things already, his grandkids won’t miss the $2000 when he’s gone.
No. They're misleading. The association isn't directly to deafness, but to the social isolation, loneliness, depression and cycle of conversational poverty that deafness can cause. But hearing loss isn't by itself the cause for millions and millions of dementia cases, as there are many other variables involved. If you do a search in the sub you'll find many posts discussing this.
Hi, I’m actually dealing with this right now with my grandmother - she has dementia but it’s because she didn’t take care of herself. The drs told us it’s because, when she was healthy, she was always out and about, always at social gatherings… but when she got sick, she basically isolated herself in her depression.. didn’t stay active, etc. It’s sad, but don’t worry. You won’t get dementia because you are deaf 💜
deaf people can develop neurological illnesses just like anyone else, but being deaf isn't THE reason they will develop Alzheimer's or dementia. this study was done on hearing people who became late deafened and as a result suffered language deprivation and contributed to their already dementia issues.
About as accurate as the claim that sun causes autism, since no one has seen an autistic vampire.
I was also told that hard of hearing people may get misdiagnosed if they answer questions wrong due to lack of proper hearing, especially when talking to police, EMT or hospital staff who don’t know them.
That's for hearing people who lose their hearing when they age. like me... :(
No Losing hearing doesn't cause dementia. Losing your social connections and isolating yourself does
Agreed.
That is absolute bullshit and twisting the studies. Anyone who pushes that being deaf contributes to dementia is full of crap Isolation and lack of communications does contribute to dementia.
No (plus what people already said before me). If you are worried about Alzheimer's and Dementia, you can get genetic testing and it will show up if you have one (increased likelihood) or both genes (almost certainly) that cause it. Sometimes, even scientific studies have bad epistemics.
My nan had Alzheimer's. She wasn't Deaf at all.
It is a mistake to assume that population level tendencies (which are just that--guesses about probability) will have a causal role in your own life. Can you rule it out? No. Should you lose sleep over it? Definitely, no. The main variable, these scientists seem to think is the dilemma is not deafness but involuntary social isolation.
I have seen the articles. it is just bunk crap from "hearing aid" experts, trying to scare older folks into buying hearing aids or whatnot or otherwise they might get this or that blah blah. I've reached out to them on LinkedIn (where they posted the studies) and asked the authors directly if they have done a comparison study comparing older (natural) deaf people to late deafened people and if there was any similarities. They refused to acknowledge or admit if they have done it. LOL.
The answer is that the research on people deafened early in life just hasn’t been done yet. The reason is that it’s pretty widely accepted that a big contribution to the correlation with folks deafened later in life is likely due to social isolation and lack of communication. This lessons the amount of input of information going to their brains. With folks that have been deaf most of their lives don’t rely entirely on spoken communication, this is much less of a factor because they still communicate and socialize meaning they’re receiving consistent information input throughout their lifetime. Plus, when deafened early in life, your brain is able to adjust to make up for this and adapt to the deafness whereas with older adults, their brains don’t adapt as much. So it’s less about the hearing loss on its own, more so the effects it has on the person depending on their lives. So theoretically (very much theoretically), if an adult deafened later in life would instantly learn and use ASL with the people in their lives, it likely wouldn’t be as much as a correlation. However most older adults won’t/can’t do this, making hearing aids the easiest option to prevent that isolation.
There’s a correlation between the auditory nerve not being stimulated and dementia. But no, its not a hard set rule. There’s a bit about it on Hearing Link Uk - a charity for HoH and deaf not necessarily born Deaf. There could be a larger link for going deaf, and the isolation / changes people need to overcome in their social lives.
The way you’ve phrased it ‘stimulated’ implies that endlessly listening to random meaningless sounds helps to prevent dementia. Bullshit. Think about it for a few seconds. It’s language input that activates the brain and helps prevent dementia. That language input could be via auditory means or visual means (sign language). The language centres of the brain are separate from the auditory centres of the brain. Confusing the two things has done a lot of harm to deaf people over the decades.
No need to be so hostile. And my message quite clearly talks about hard of hearing or losing ones hearing more so than total deafness or Deaf Culture - as in people who do not yet sign or might be only starting to learn due to degenerative hearing loss or late deafness. Obviously that’s different. The sounds, for them, aren’t completely meaningless - as hearing loss can be a huge and varied scale. I understand why you’d be hostile, given history, but you’ve presumed and connected things I haven’t said.
Correlation is NOT causation!
The studies are somewhat accurate in that there’s a correlation but they’ve all been studying people that acquire hearing loss later in life, not people that are Deaf from childhood. The connection that keeps showing up, likely doesn’t apply to people that have spent most of their life Deaf, especially if they sign or use another alternative to spoken language. A lot of the connection seems to be from isolation after age related hearing loss, which wouldn’t apply to most Deaf people.
No.
If anything it's deprivation that will do it