CHECK YOURSELF
New study shows that managing age-related hearing loss may decrease risk of dementia.
You can’t project vibrancy, connection and glowing good health if your response to someone you meet socially is “What did you say?”
I am fascinated by a new study in the medical journal The Lancet that shows that if you prevent or manage age-related hearing loss, you may decrease your chance of getting dementia.
Dementia, the Lancet study reminds us, is not an “inevitable consequence of aging.” But for many of us, hearing loss sure is.
The Lancet’s commission on dementia came up with nine “potentially modifiable health and lifestyle factors” that might help prevent dementia.
Hearing loss is labelled the secondmost important factor, after good childhood education. Why is this important? Many of us have cared for beloved elders, some of whom have stubbornly resisted the necessity of hearing devices — “I can hear just fine, dear” — and yet these elders can, as a result of perfectly normal age-related hearing loss, unnecessarily slip into social isolation and cognitive distress.
Not all problems can be addressed as readily as hearing loss. We should gently but firmly push harder for them to use hearing aids if they need them. Their cognitive health may depend on it.
Here’s another key reason the hearing loss/dementia connection is important: We baby boomers are just coming up on our own not-sogolden “I’m sorry, what did you say?” years, in which words that were once clear during conversations, especially in crowded rooms, are now muffled.
For some of us, noisy restaurants have become unbearable. You want to see cranky, try four boomers, a bottle of fruity rosé and multiple fruitless requests to a smirking young waiter to please — please — just turn down the damn music. Even the waiter gets cranky.
Paradoxically, the volume on our own radios and other listening devices can sometimes rival the noise level of that scary “Amber Alert ” notification.
I’ve been scolded by my millennial adult children for how loud my car radio sounds, as if I am jazzing myself with Kendrick Lamar instead of sedately listening to CBC afternoon show Here and Now host Gill Deacon cracking a few jokes. (Her jokes are pretty good.)
I may have had an unfortunate head start on the erosion of my once-acute hearing after suffering a concussion two years ago.
All I know is that at a recent crowded and glitzy media event, where the champagne after party was held in a hotel antechamber, the main sound I heard was that of buzzing bees.
“Boy some people were really drunk at that event,” a friend told me later. I wouldn’t know. All I heard was those damn bees. That’s all the bad news, folks. The good news is there’s never been a cooler time for aging boomers to wear a hearing device. Think Bluetooth! Think every young person you know prancing down the street with a listening device in their ear. They seem cool, so why can’t we? One of the most glamorous boomer women in Canada uses an auditory device. Karen Kain, 66, former prima ballerina, and now artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, has for the past few years, worn a device in one ear to correct a hereditary condition. Now, she says, “I don’t have to strain at all to hear conversations.”
A music producer I know in his 60s, who doesn’t want his name used (professional discretion), says for a while he was “too freaked out” about his hearing loss to even get tested. When he finally did, “it confirmed my fears.” He decided to give hearing aids a go and “it was like a blanket had been lifted. I sort of wish I had done it sooner.”
With sleek and tech forward (and yes, sometimes expensive) devices, boomers are getting what they want, says Rex Banks, director of audiology for the Canadian Hearing Society.
“We are slowly being able to understand what the baby boomers want from hearing and health care. Our clients are searching for convenience, value in pricing and a high level of expertise. Certainly the new style of hearing aids, and their compatibility with Bluetooth technology, are a match for the diverse and active lifestyle they want to live.”
The Canadian Hearing Society confirms that aging is the No. 1 cause of hearing loss and “the incidence of hearing loss is poised to climb dramatically as our population ages. (The number of adults aged 65 and over in Ontario is projected to be 4.1 million, or 23.4 per cent of the population, by 2036.)
Stats show almost 46 per cent of people aged 45 to 87 will have hearing loss. That’s a lot of irritable restaurant diners asking for the music to be turned down because they can’t distinguish the conversation from the ambient noise.
Aging gracefully always sounds a lot easier than it is. We are still an anti-aging society. My generation has gone to remarkable lengths to look young, feel young and even think young.
But you can’t project vibrancy, connection and glowing good health if your response to someone you meet socially is “What did you say?”
My deepest fear is that someone will confess something sad to me in a crowded noisy room — say losing a job — and just taking a guess, I will respond, “Good for you!”
Now that we know that managing any hearing loss may also help stave off dementia, why wouldn’t we be proactive and get help?
I am almost looking forward to wearing a wire. Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson.