Affects of Untreated Hearing Loss

Hearing Loss – It’s not just affecting hearing

Public Health Problem

Researchers at John’s Hopkins have found that untreated hearing loss affects more than hearing; it affects our health. Untreated hearing loss reduces the brains awareness of the environment. The brain uses more of its resources compensating for the decreased sensory input when means that fewer brain resources are available for monitoring balance. Here is a link to their website and some informative videos if you are interested in following their work: https://www.jhucochlearcenter.org/hearing-loss.html

Global Problem

The World Health Organization’s 70th Assembly adopted a resolution on the prevention of deafness and hearing loss in 2017. According to their website, “This resolution calls upon Member States to integrate strategies for ear and hearing care within the framework of their primary health care systems, under the umbrella of universal health coverage. It also requests WHO to undertake a number of actions for promotion of ear and hearing care at global level.” https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss

Auditory Deprivation

Studies published by researchers with the Veteran’s Administration have shown that early practices of fitting bilateral hearing loss with one hearing aid (a practice not uncommon before digital hearing aids were available) resulted in reduced word comprehension in the untreated hearing ear compared to the aided ear.

We also know that adults who have never heard as children and received a cochlear implant as an adult do not get the same hearing benefit in terms of speech and hearing as someone who has heard as a child and then lost their hearing and undergone a cochlear implant.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s

As early as 1989, the University of Washington, Seattle found a connection between hearing loss and dementia. This connection was not pursued again until 2011 when Frank Lin , MD and colleagues at John’s Hopkins published the results of a longitudinal study that tested and followed the hearing of 639 older adults who were dementia-free for twelve years. 58 developed Alzheimer’s. Lin and his group found that a person’s likelihood of developing dementia increased in direct proportion to the severity of the hearing loss diagnosed during the initial testing.

In 2017, The Lancet commission reviewed all published research on risk factors for dementia and found that hearing loss is the largest risk factor. The study found that reducing hearing decline in people between the ages of 45 to 65 by protecting good hearing and aiding poor hearing was estimated to reduce lifetime dementia risk by as much as 9 percent.

Increased risk of falling

Research from Frank, Lin, MD and Luiggi Ferrucci from NIOA in 2017 evaluated people between the ages of 40-69 and found that even a mild hearing loss tripled the risk of an accidental fall. As the degree of loss increased by 10 dB, the risk of falling increased by 140%.

Increased risk of hospitalization

In a study by Nicholas S. Reed, Au.D. published Nov. 8, 2018 in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Older, researchers found that adults with untreated hearing loss incur substantially higher total health care costs compared to those who don’t have hearing loss—an average of 46 percent, totaling $22,434 per person over a decade. The project was done in collaboration with AARP, University of California San Francisco and Optum Labs.

The differences between the two groups were evident as early as two years after diagnosis. Compared to the patients without hearing loss, patients with the condition generated nearly 26 percent more in total health care costs within two years, a gap that widened to 46 percent by 10 years, amounting to $22,434 per individual ($20,403 incurred by the health plan, $2,030 by the individual in out-of-pocket costs). The study did not include patients with hearing loss who had evidence of hearing aid use.