Do hearing aids help your brain stay sharp?
Treating Hearing Loss With Hearing Aids for the Prevention of Cognitive Decline and Dementia.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Hearing aids were linked to lower dementia risk but didn’t improve overall cognitive scores.
Most assume that if hearing aids help prevent dementia, they’d also boost general thinking—yet the study found no meaningful change in broad cognitive performance.
Practical Takeaways
If you or a loved one has hearing loss, consider getting hearing aids—not just to hear better, but possibly to lower dementia risk.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Hearing aids were linked to lower dementia risk but didn’t improve overall cognitive scores.
Most assume that if hearing aids help prevent dementia, they’d also boost general thinking—yet the study found no meaningful change in broad cognitive performance.
Practical Takeaways
If you or a loved one has hearing loss, consider getting hearing aids—not just to hear better, but possibly to lower dementia risk.
Publication
Journal
Neurology
Year
2026
Authors
Lachlan Cribb, Margarita Moreno-Betancur, Matthew P Pase, R. Wolfe, C. Britt, Zhen Zhou, Raj C. Shah, Gary Rance, Kerry M. Sheets, T. Chong, Robyn L. Woods, A. Murray, Alice J. Owen, Joanne Ryan
Related Content
Claims (4)
If you're older and have trouble hearing, using hearing aids might help keep your brain sharper and lower your chances of developing dementia.
Older people with moderate hearing loss who use hearing aids may be less likely to develop memory problems or dementia over seven years, but the data isn’t strong enough to say for sure it’s because of the hearing aids.
For older people with moderate hearing loss, using hearing aids for seven years doesn’t seem to make their memory or thinking skills noticeably better or worse than not using them.
Older people with moderate hearing loss who wear hearing aids are less likely to develop dementia over seven years than those who don’t—about 5 out of 100 vs. 7 or 8 out of 100—so hearing aids might help protect the brain, even if other factors could be influencing the result.