Alexa Beiser of Boston University and colleagues conducted a longitudinal study and found that using a hearing aid for age-related hearing loss before age 70 is associated with a significant reduction in the risk of developing dementia. The study used data from nearly 3,000 participants in the Framingham Hearing Study (FHS), enrolled at age 60 and older (mean 68.9 years; 59 percent women), without dementia at baseline. Hearing loss was determined using pure-tone audiometry at a frequency-averaged hearing threshold of 26 decibels. The association of this condition and hearing aid use with the risk of all-cause dementia was assessed using Cox regression models. The results were published in JAMA Neurology.
Participants were followed for up to 20 years. During this time, some form of dementia developed in 20 percent of participants, 42 percent of whom were under 70 years of age at the time of the hearing assessment. Among people with hearing loss diagnosed before age 70, hearing aid use was associated with a 61 percent reduction in the risk of dementia compared with no hearing aid use. No hearing loss was associated with a 29 percent reduction in risk. No such patterns were observed among participants aged 70 years and older. These findings highlight the importance of early interventions for hearing loss to reduce the risk of dementia.
