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.
