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Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

nih.gov

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Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

#21

Post by waterhouse »

olliecornelia wrote: post #17
waterhouse wrote: post #16

A 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

I'm advocating that people do studies with randomized interventions—an approach that is capable of proving causation—and not being satisfied with purely observational studies that look at correlations, which are often hopelessly confounded and can't distinguish between "X causes Y" and "Z causes both X and Y". I was pleasantly surprised to find that this study was of the first type rather than the second.

Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

#22

Post by ben_w »

wirrbel wrote: post #14

Isn’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

I suspect most people think that both are caused by old age, rather than that deafness causes (or accelerates) dementia. It's not like there's a well known group of congenitally deaf people who get dementia young to inspire a causal connection.

My mum started noticeably losing her hearing after her dementia symptoms got quite bad. She may well have lost her hearing sooner and we just didn't notice, just as in retrospect there were huge warning signs of dementia well before the diagnosis and we just didn't realise what we were observing.

Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

#24

Post by FrustratedMonky »

magicalhippo wrote: post #6
m3kw9 wrote: post #3

Sounds 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…

Seems like this is saying something different.

If it was purely lack of hearing leads to atrophy and neural decay, then why are deaf not all just in steady decline and dying off?

There must be more to it, why can't people that loose hearing later, learn sign language, and thus stay active, just like the deaf.

Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

#25

Post by joombaga »

ben_w wrote: post #22
wirrbel wrote: post #14

Isn’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

I suspect most people think that both are caused by old age, rather than that deafness causes (or accelerates) dementia. It's not like there's a well known group of congenitally deaf people who get dementia young to inspire a causal connection. My mum started noticeably losing her hearing after her dementia symptoms got quite bad. She may well have lost her hearing sooner and we just didn't notice, just as in retrosp…

May I ask what the huge warning signs were?

Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

#26

Post by aksss »

Wait, isn’t the retraction of this old news by now?

“We should have followed up’: Lancet journal retracts article on hearing aids and dementia after prodding”

https://retractionwatch.com/2024/01/04/we-should-have-follow...

“When the paper first appeared, it seemed to confirm a widely held belief – that hearing loss is associated with developing dementia, and using hearing aids can help to reduce risk – about which the scientific evidence has been mixed, Blustein, the hearing loss researcher, told Retraction Watch. In her view, public health messaging and media coverage of the question has been “misleading.”

The findings were picked up quickly and disseminated among the community of people following the question of hearing loss and dementia, she said. “I don’t think people are necessarily aware of retractions.”

Another pull quote:

“Most notably, he found that hearing aid use did not correspond to a lower rate of dementia for people with hearing loss, as the authors reported. He found the opposite: among people with hearing loss, the dementia rate was higher for those using hearing aids.”

Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

#27

Post by sp332 »

aksss wrote: post #26

Wait, isn’t the retraction of this old news by now? “We should have followed up’: Lancet journal retracts article on hearing aids and dementia after prodding” https://retractionwatch.com/2024/01/04/we-should-have-follow... “When the paper first appeared, it seemed to confirm a widely held belief – that hearing loss is associated with developing dementia, and using hearing aids can help to reduce risk – about which th…

That one was from UK BioBank data and published in April. This one is from John Hopkins in the USA and was published in July.

Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

#28

Post by Jensson »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #24
magicalhippo wrote: post #6

Earlier 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…

Seems like this is saying something different. If it was purely lack of hearing leads to atrophy and neural decay, then why are deaf not all just in steady decline and dying off? There must be more to it, why can't people that loose hearing later, learn sign language, and thus stay active, just like the deaf.

> why can't people that loose hearing later, learn sign language, and thus stay active, just like the deaf.

Did their friends and family learn sign language as well? People who are deaf young tend to get a social circle who can communicate with deaf people, while old people are unlikely to rebuild all of that.

Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

#29

Post by dylan604 »

sp332 wrote: post #27
aksss wrote: post #26

Wait, isn’t the retraction of this old news by now? “We should have followed up’: Lancet journal retracts article on hearing aids and dementia after prodding” https://retractionwatch.com/2024/01/04/we-should-have-follow... “When the paper first appeared, it seemed to confirm a widely held belief – that hearing loss is associated with developing dementia, and using hearing aids can help to reduce risk – about which th…

That one was from UK BioBank data and published in April. This one is from John Hopkins in the USA and was published in July.

[dead]

Re: Hearing aids slow cognitive decline in people at high risk

#30

Post by AlexErrant »

sp332 wrote: post #9

Interesting that another Lancet paper on this topic was recently retracted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38894636

The retracted paper discusses an association since it was observational:

> We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios... between self-reported hearing aid use status (hearing loss with or without hearing aids) at baseline and risk of dementia

The top-level article discusses a randomized controlled study and therefore can make a much stronger claim of causality:

> 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. Both groups received follow-up visits every six months to reinforce the training.

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