Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is an increasingly common feature of aging and has been linked to poorer psychosocial wellbeing and increased dementia risk. Individuals with ARHL experience speech perception difficulties in noisy environments, wherein the brain must "turn up the volume" or upregulate neural activity to accurately parse speech from background noise....
Short-term hearing aid use appears to reduce effortful cortical processing of speech-in-noise in older adults, providing neurophysiological support for early fitting; however, the study is preliminary and does not yet warrant a change in fitting protocols beyond reinforcing timely intervention.
Neurophysiological evidence linking hearing aid use to reduced cortical listening effort strengthens the case for early amplification as a potential modifiable factor in cognitive health and dementia prevention.
- 01Short-term hearing aid use reduced auditory cortical responses during speech-in-noise tasks in older adults.
- 02Reduced cortical responses may reflect decreased listening effort rather than worse processing.
- 03Findings have implications for psychosocial wellbeing and dementia risk reduction.
- 04Study population: older adults with age-related (presbycusis) hearing loss.
- 05Published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2026.1690956).
Short-term hearing aid use reduces auditory cortical responses to speech-in-noise in older adults with age-related hearing loss.
studypartially supportedReduced cortical responses from hearing aid use have implications for psychosocial wellbeing and dementia risk.
studypartially supported- PMID
- 42080120
- DOI
- 10.3389/fnagi.2026.1690956.
- Journal
- Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 2b
- Population
- Older adults with age-related hearing loss
- Intervention
- Short-term hearing aid use
Primary outcomes
Auditory cortical electrophysiological responses to speech-in-noise