I first noticed early hearing loss in 2019. Conversations were becoming more muffled. I caught myself asking people to repeat themselves. The kids noticed that I wouldn’t join in family film nights as often, choosing instead to read a paper in the same room or scroll on my phone. This was easier than straining to hear the words of a film and I knew subtitles would just be an annoyance to them all. At forty six, I couldn’t fathom that my hearing was truly deteriorating and put it down to ear wax, an assumption that was immediately quashed following a trip to the GP. My ears were free of wax – there was something else impeding my hearing.
An appointment at a local private audiologist confirmed my fears – I sat silently with headphones on, waiting to hear the high pitched bleeps but they didn’t arrive in tandem with the audiologists clicks on her device. I was diagnosed with moderate hearing loss. Such was the degree of loss, I was asked if I had spent my life working in a factory. Factory, no but I had spent multiple hours driving the length and breadth of the country in my previous career, regularly listening to the radio and my CD collection at full pelt. Perhaps my love of music had finally taken its toll. Then again, both my mother and grandfather had been hard of hearing and so it was more likely that genetic influences were at play. Whatever the reason, I scoffed at the prospect of forking out £4000 for a pair of hearing aids and went into a period of denial. Four years of denial in total.
It took for me to buy a ticket to see Jeremy Bowen sharing excerpts from his 30 year career at the Oxford Literary festival a few weeks ago to resolve my hearing crisis. Sat high up in the gods in the Sheoldian theatre, I was both shocked and devastated to realise that I might as well have been watching him on the TV with the sound turned off. The questions being posed to him were entirely muted and I could only make out a fraction of his responses. Worse still was overhearing a couple in front of me reflecting on what a fascinating talk he had given, especially his encounter with Obama. I have filled some of the gaps by reading his book but the experience was the vital trigger I needed to take action. Twenty four hours later I was sat in the portaloo-sized hearing cubicle at Specsavers and once again, I was told I had moderate hearing loss. This time I accepted my diagnosis and vowed to look into which devices might work best for me.
I picked up my new hearing aids a couple of weeks ago. For most things that cost a lot of money, there is normally a sense of joy and anticipation in collecting them. Like the delight of buying a new phone or computer. There was no such sense of elation in collecting my Phonaks. Merely a recognition that I had hit another milestone in my rapidly progressing life.
The joy was to come later. Whilst trying my hearing aids on in the shop, I felt no immediate benefit. I don’t struggle with hearing conversations one to one. However as I stepped out onto the street, the hum of the traffic was sharper. Noise all around was magnified and I felt as though all my senses had been sharpened. As I crossed the road and headed down a quiet tree-lined side street, that’s when the borderline euphoria struck. I could hear birdsong! Possibly the first birds I had heard in as much as six to eight years. It was glorious. It actually served as a reminder for things I hadn’t realised I had missed – I had simply got used to them not being in my life. We assume our senses are separate streams of information. In actual fact, our brains use the imperfect streams from all our senses to generate a virtual reality that we know as consciousness. It’s our brains best assumption as to what is out there.
These revelations continued all the way home. It was genuinely heart lifting. From turning the keys in the ignition (I hadn’t realised that action generated a sound) to hearing the comforting clickety clack of my indicator, my drive home was a journey of re-discovery. I feel so much more connected to my world in just the space of a few weeks – it has simply been the best gift to myself, ever!
And the reason I talk about hearing is this. When I first started to notice my loss of hearing, I knew nothing about its link with dementia. Several studies in recent years however have shown a clear link between hearing loss and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. In a review of over 20,000 participants carried out by researchers at Trinity College Dublin, age-related hearing loss (ARHL) was linked to decline in a number of areas of cognitive functioning, including episodic memory and a slower processing speed. Other studies have also indicated that hearing loss regularly precedes the onset of dementia by five to ten years.
It is therefore no surprise that many experts are advocating wearing hearing aids in order to delay or prevent dementia by improving verbal communication and keeping the brain healthy.
Katie Puckering, information services manager for Alzheimer’s Research UK has suggested there may be two possible reasons for this link. “The first is that hearing loss might be linked with cellular changes in the brain. But the second is that social isolation has long been known as a risk of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.”
Research in this area is ongoing and more recently, The Lancet Public Health published an article which suggested that out of a UK biobank of over 430,000 individuals, 42% had an increased risk of dementia as a result of self-reported hearing loss compared with those without. However, the authors also noted that there was no increased risk for those patients who were regularly wearing hearing aids.
So as a new adopter of hearing aids and someone who is passionate about protecting the mind and memories, I can only advocate to anyone suffering from any form of hearing loss to go and get yourself checked out. Whilst superior devices might be available for those willing to pay for them, the NHS now offers a wide range of pretty discreet and highly effective hearing aids. I find it odd that we don’t seem to bat an eyelid when we see people wearing glasses. But for some reason, wearing a hearing aid still carries an element of stigma. As more and more consumers get accustomed to wearing earbuds for listening to music on phones etc, I think there will be a natural shift in people’s perceptions on hearing aids. With any luck, there will be a step change in time towards people embracing hearing aids and all that they offer in the way of enhancing day to day life and keep dementia-related illnesses at bay.
