Do hearing aids help your brain stay sharp?

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.