Hearing loss. It makes you imagine someone turning the volume up too high or constantly asking people to repeat themselves. Yet it’s actually connected to how the brain itself changes. Sadly, millions of people know they have some hearing trouble, but still put it off for years before doing anything.
Why? And what effects could this have on you? Here’s what several research studies say. But before we start, you should know that this is not a substitute for health advice & is simply the results from various studies.
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Key takeaways
You’ll learn:
- What’s physically going on in the ear during common age-related hearing loss
- How hearing loss is connected to brain changes
- What large studies report about hearing loss, memory & thinking
- Why so many people ignore hearing loss
What age-related hearing loss actually is
Getting older changes your ears in ways you probably don’t notice…until conversations in noisy places feel impossible. The most common form is known as presbycusis. This happens when the tiny inner-ear parts that send sound to the brain start breaking down.
A 2017 study by C. Liberman & S. Kujawa found that the synapses are among the first to go during hearing loss. These synapses link your hair cells & your auditory nerves, and when they’re gone, sound signals just don’t travel with the same precision.
Beyond the synapses, your outer hair cells wear out & the stria vascularis, the structure that keeps the inner ear powered, weakens too. Put it all together, and what do you have? Sound that’s muffled or harder to decode. Usually, it’s the high-pitched sounds that vanish first. That makes everyday words harder to hear.
How the brain changes when the ears get quieter
MRI studies by F R Lin & other scientists (known as the ACHIEVE trial) have shown that older adults with untreated hearing loss lose brain tissue in certain areas faster than those with normal hearing. One of these is the temporal lobe, which handles sound processing.
Functional imaging research from a 2011 study by Jonathan E Peelle & others also revealed something else. The brain starts recruiting extra areas to compensate when listening becomes harder & people with hearing loss often use more frontal brain regions to simply follow sentences. Essentially, it’s extra listening effort.
A 2020 study by Bidelman, Mahmud, Yeasin, Shen, Arnott, & Alain shows that your brain’s wiring changes, too, as your connectivity patterns reorganize.
Another phenomenon is something called cross-modal reorganization. Two scientists, J. Campbell & A. Sharma, conducted a study in 2014 and discovered something interesting. As the amount of sound input drops, other senses, like your vision, start using parts of the brain usually reserved for hearing. This is your brain’s way of adapting. However, it also shows how much hearing loss changes your brain.
What large studies say about memory & thinking
Several big studies have also linked hearing loss to dementia. One of these is the Lancet Commission, which lists hearing impairment as one of the major changeable risks across a lifetime.
This was a study in Norway that involved researchers tracking older adults. They found a link between hearing loss & later dementia, especially in people under 85, while scientists conducted a similar study in the U.S. of over half a million adults. This 2024 study was titled Hearing Loss, Hearing Aid Use, and Risk of Dementia in Older Adults.
In it, they found that dementia was more common among those with hearing loss. The only group that didn’t have dementia? The ones who wore hearing aids.
There’s also the ACHIEVE trial that assessed 977 adults aged 70–84 with hearing loss. They were split into two groups, with one receiving the best-practice hearing care & the other receiving general health education. After three years, the overall group results looked about the same.
But then the same researchers looked closer at people already with a higher risk of dementia. They found that the hearing group declined more slowly than the control group.
What changes day to day when hearing drops
Even mild loss makes it tough to hear high-frequency sounds like “s,” “f,” & “th.” Studies show that conversations become harder, especially in noisy settings like restaurants.
This is because a lack of synapses means your brain can’t separate voices from background clatter as easily. Your brain burns more resources simply to keep up with basic speech.
How common hearing loss is & how often it’s treated
By the time people hit their 70s, about two-thirds already have some hearing loss. By age 90, it’s almost everyone. Yet only about 3 in 10 people with hearing loss actually use hearing aids, according to a 2023 study by Reed & other scientists.
The uptake itself isn’t the only issue. The same study found that, on average, people wait nearly nine years from the point they could benefit from a hearing aid to the point they finally get one. That means they’re struggling through conversations for almost a decade, even though it really doesn’t need to be this difficult.
So why do people ignore it? According to studies, it’s due to a mix of factors:
- Stigma: Many people associate hearing aids with being “old” or “weak,” and they’ll avoid them
- Adapting: People get used to lip-reading & guessing their way through conversations, so it doesn’t always feel urgent
- Cost: Hearing aids are expensive & not everyone has coverage
- Doubts: Some people assume they won’t help or have had a bad experience with them before
One of these studies was a 2009 qualitative study titled The Stigma of Hearing Loss that interviewed couples with one partner who had hearing loss, but didn’t have hearing aids. Another of these was a 2023 systematic review by Knoetze & other scientists.
Once you put all of that together, it’s easy to see why so many people delay getting help. But even then, they shouldn’t. It’s easier to fix these issues when you catch them earlier, although you should always consult a medical professional. After all, this is a major lifestyle change.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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