Chris has been somewhat forgetful recently. She forgot her doctor’s appointment for the second month in a row (time to reschedule again). And before she went to bed she even overlooked running the dishwasher (looks like she’ll be handwashing her coffee cup today). Lately she’s been allowing things fall through the cracks. Chris has been feeling mentally fatigued and depleted all the time but, strangely, she doesn’t feel forgetful.
It can be challenging to recognize that feeling until it’s sneaking up on you. Frequently, though, the trouble isn’t your memory, despite how forgetful you may appear. The real problem is your hearing. And that means there’s one tiny device, a hearing aid, that can assist you to substantially improve your memory.
How to Enhance Your General Cognitive Function And Memory
So, the first step you can take to improve your memory, to get everybody’s name right at your next meeting or to make sure you plan that day off for your eye exam, is to get your hearing checked. A typical hearing examination will be able to determine if you have hearing loss and how severe any impairment might be.
Chris hesitates, though, because she hasn’t noticed any signs or symptoms of hearing loss. She doesn’t really have difficulty hearing in a crowded room. And she’s never had a hard time listening to any of her team members at work.
But she might have some amount of hearing loss even though she hasn’t detected any symptoms yet. In fact, one of the first symptoms of hearing impairment is memory loss. And strain on the brain is the underlying cause. This is how it works:
- Your hearing starts to diminish, maybe so slowly you don’t notice.
- Your ears detect a lack of sound, however slight.
- The sounds that you can hear, need to be amplified and translated which causes your brain to work extra hard.
- You can’t detect any real difference but in order to comprehend sound your brain has to work extra hard.
That kind of continuous strain can be really difficult on your brain’s finite resources. So you have less mental energy for things such as, well, memory or for other cognitive functions.
Hearing Loss And Dementia
When memory loss is extreme, the result could be dementia. And hearing loss and dementia do have a connection, though what the actual cause-effect relationship is, remains somewhat unknown. Still, there is a higher danger of cognitive decline in people who have neglected hearing loss, beginning with some minor memory loss and increasing to more serious cognitive problems.
Wearing Hearing Aids Can Help You Avoid Fatigue
This is why it’s important to deal with your hearing loss. According to one study, 97.3% of people with hearing loss who wore hearing aids for at least 18 months showed a significant stabilization or improvement in their cognitive functions.
Similar results have been observed in various other studies. It’s definitely helpful to wear hearing aids. When your brain doesn’t have to strain quite as hard, your general cognitive function improves. Memory loss and issues with cognitive function can have lots of intricate factors and hearing aids aren’t always a magic bullet.
Memory Loss Can be The First Signal of Hearing Loss
This type of memory loss is mostly a function of mental fatigue and is usually temporary. But that can change if the underlying concerns remain neglected.
Loss of memory, then, can be somewhat of an early warning system. You should schedule an appointment with your hearing specialist as soon as you detect these symptoms. As soon as your fundamental hearing problems are dealt with, your memory should go back to normal.
And your hearing will most likely improve as well. The decline in your hearing will be slowed considerably by using hearing aids. In a sense, your total wellness, not only your memory, could be improved by these little devices.
