Dementia and Hearing Loss

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Anchor lead: Raising awareness of hearing numbers may interrupt progression to dementia for some, Elizabeth Tracey reports

You should know your hearing number. That’s according to Frank Lin, a hearing expert at Johns Hopkins and advocate for making this number as well-known as blood pressure numbers. Lin says one reason is the link between hearing loss and dementia.

Lin: We have a big trial, and it’s called the ACHIEVE study, where we’ve been testing if you can treat hearing loss can you delay dementia. That trial is ongoing. The recruitment is closed now at just under 1000 people, so now everyone’s in the three year follow up phase. The final results won’t be ready until essentially the earliest end of 2022, early 2023. To be honest we really don’t know if you treat hearing would it make a difference. We think it could but we really don’t know. I’m hopeful it makes a difference. There’s every reason to think that treating hearing loss would work on and change the mechanisms through which hearing loss is linked to dementia.  :33

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.