What about people who are completely deaf since birth?
Different mechanisms, you’re born with ~100x the amount of neurons you’ll have as an adult, those normally used for hearing get adapted and trained on other stimuli.
Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
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Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
#12What about people who are completely deaf since birth?
Make sure their glasses prescriptions are up to date & that they are engaged with the world (and not slipping away) too.
Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
#13What about people who are completely deaf since birth?
I would assume they compensate with other senses and so if they get blind at high age they are at equal risk.
Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
#14Isn’t that common knowledge? Or let me rephrase this: this can be observed by laypeople in their communities.
I am glad that it’s also scientifically studied if the body of evidence hasn’t been large enough so far
Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
#15Alternate headline: people who take actions to be more social slow cognitive decline.
Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
#16A randomized intervention! Huzzah!
> The researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two interventions. About half received hearing aids and instruction in how to use them. The other half were assigned to a health education program focused on promoting healthy aging.
Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
#17A randomized intervention! Huzzah! > The researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two interventions. About half received hearing aids and instruction in how to use them. The other half were assigned to a health education program focused on promoting healthy aging.
What are you advocating
Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
#18Sounds like if you stimulate your brain more your brian is less likely to “atrophy”
Which to me shouldn't be that surprising given that we know neurons seek to connect with other neurons based on activation patterns, and that the brain stays plastic into old age. I've seen similar with movement. Once they break a hip or something which severely reduces their physical activity level, cognitive abilities usually go downhill fast. Part of that is probably cardio-related, but I've long thought it was re…
I wonder if some of that could be solved via VR or even just video games. Not as good as the real thing but should be more mentally stimulating than passively watching.
Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
#19Alternate headline: people who take actions to be more social slow cognitive decline.
Yes, but this is also a very concrete solution to encourage people to take more actions.
Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which to me shouldn't be that surprising given that we know neurons seek to connect with other neurons based on activation patterns, and that the brain stays plastic into old age. I've seen similar with movement. Once they break a hip or something which severely reduces their physical activity level, cognitive abilities usually go downhill fast. Part of that is probably cardio-related, but I've long thought it was re…
I wonder if some of that could be solved via VR or even just video games. Not as good as the real thing but should be more mentally stimulating than passively watching.
There's a ton of research into this idea, have a search on PubMed.
Unfortunately it suffers from at least two problems.
First, generalisable effects from specific interventions often fail to replicate, so for example subjects tend to get better at a specific task but it doesn't necessarily carry over to real-world contexts. There are a few promising potential directions, although even those results are modest and uncertain.
Second, people with even mild/early signs of dementia are extremely unlikely to continue with an intervention. Even if they do they often modify it, e.g. unplugging a smart device to save energy, or taping over buttons to prevent accidentally pressing them.
I would hunt out references but I'm on mobile, they shouldn't be hard to find.