Hearing and Cognition
Impact Hearing Loss has on Cognition
- Long-term hearing deprivation can impact cognitive performance
- Hearing loss places one at risk for cognitive impairment and increasing evidence has linked age-related hearing loss to more rapid progression of cognitive decline and incidental dementia
Cognition’s Impact on Hearing
- Limited cognitive skills from a variety of causes such as aging or head injury may reduce the cognitive resources available for understanding speech, especially in background noise, increasing the effects of hearing loss
- Hearing loss is associated with increased cognitive load due to the increased listening effort, or challenge of interpreting a degraded peripheral signal (speech)