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My spouse is an audiologist, and yes, she has told me (and of course her patients) this is very much a "use it or lose it" type of deal.
My spouse is an audiologist, and yes, she has told me (and of course her patients) this is very much a "use it or lose it" type of deal.
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.
“About 250 healthy older adults came from a long-term study of heart health … 739 people were newly recruited. . . . Participants recruited from the heart-health study had more risk factors for developing dementia, including being older and having faster rates of cognitive decline than those from the general community.
In the main analysis of all study participants, the researchers saw no difference in the rate of change in cognitive functioning between people who received the hearing aids and those who didn’t.
However, when the analysis focused on people from the heart-health study, who had a higher risk of dementia, the benefit of the hearing aids was substantial. Those who received hearing aids had an almost 50% reduction in the rate of cognitive decline.”
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…
Hearing ability and cognitive ability are significantly correlated, independent of age.
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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.
I think a more helpful way to look at research is to look for a convergence of outcomes across the evidence, like a bunch of needles of various sizes pointing in the same direction (or not) on a gauge. And where there are divergences, and there always will be, which differences in methodology can explain them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>It's not like there's a well known group of congenitally deaf people who get dementia young to inspire a causal connection. Hearing ability and cognitive ability are significantly correlated, independent of age. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581793/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
While this take seems popular, this isn't a good way of looking at it because, in my experience, it seems to lead to the dismissal of good evidence or it suggests that we can't build confident causal inferences without a certain study. For example, RCTs are also observational, and it's incorrect to say they can uniquely detect causation. I think a more helpful way to look at research is to look for a convergence of o…
The key phrase is "purely observational". Now, occasionally you end up with a "natural experiment" in which some accident has effectively done the randomization for you—specifically, where the mechanism that puts people in the treatment group vs the control group is something you can be very confident has no other causal interactions. This was a good example: https://twitter.com/PGeldsetzer1/status/1661776663074738176
"Causal evidence that herpes zoster vaccination prevents a proportion of dementia cases [...] To provide causal as opposed to merely correlational evidence on this question, we take advantage of the fact that in Wales eligibility for the herpes zoster vaccine (Zostavax) for shingles prevention was determined based on an individual's exact date of birth. Those born before September 2 1933 were ineligible and remained ineligible for life, while those born on or after September 2 1933 were eligible to receive the vaccine."
But any time you're looking at a scenario where treatment vs non-treatment was the result of individual human choices, that opens up a potentially very wide range of ways for something you didn't know about (and potentially something difficult to accurately control for even if you do know about it) to cause treatment and cause the outcome, instead of the treatment causing the outcome.
> it suggests that we can't build confident causal inferences without a certain study
I do think there's an upper limit to the confidence you can justifiably hold, and that it's often not very high. Consider the studies that observe "A bit of alcohol correlates with better health than zero alcohol". You control for wealth, education, and maybe other things, and the apparent effect remains. How high confidence should you have in the result? Then someone realizes: Some fraction of people who consume zero alcohol do so under doctor's orders because they have health problems, and if you exclude those people then the effect disappears.
No matter how many causal pathways you think you've controlled for, how confident can you really be that there isn't a new one you haven't thought of? (And controlling has its own perils: if your measurements are noisy, or if you end up controlling for the outcome.)
> it's incorrect to say they can uniquely detect causation
Oh, correlational studies can "detect" causation, but the hard part is being certain that the thing detected isn't a false positive.
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.
Ideally we would have a 4th: control that we do nothing with - but this is not ethical so we can't. Where you can do this ethically you should do it.
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.
If you don't need to use the language except for a one week tour (where you are still mostly with people who speak your language) this is good enough. However if you are suddenly without ability to communicate you probably can't suddenly learn fast enough to combat decline.