Even without a cognition benefit hearing aids are still worth using, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Imagine a drug that could slow the rate of cognitive decline among those at risk by fifty percent. That’s the benefit of hearing aid use shown in a recent study by Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues. 

Lin: The big step now is we'll continue to follow everyone from minimally another three more years and at that point because we're already seeing effects on both groups we see loneliness go down,social network go up, communication impairment go down, so everything's moving just the cognitive end point you can't improve something that doesn't need to be improved for the healthy volunteers. That is one really interesting finding from the study that the people who are already at risk had a steep essential decline in cognitive function for three years they still benefit, which is really cool, right so it suggests that it's actually not too late.  :32 

Lin says that longer follow up should even more clearly demonstrate the benefits of hearing aids for those with hearing loss beyond slowing cognitive decline. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.