Dr. Gregory Lowe, Audiologist
Personalized Hearing Care

Auditory Deprivation

Because of auditory deprivation, it is possible your hearing could get worse. Auditory deprivation refers to a person’s lack of adequate hearing stimulation. With auditory deprivation, the brain gradually loses some of its information processing ability. Several investigations have shown that people, who wear only one hearing aid, experience a reduction in their ability to understand speech in the ear that has not been stimulated with an aid. The ability of the auditory system to process speech declines due to a lack of stimulation.

Several studies have confirmed the existence of auditory deprivation. Hurley studied 142 adult hearing aid users. Seventy-seven subjects used monaural hearing aids and sixty-five of the subjects used binaural amplification. Each subject was tested for word recognition ability one, three and five years post fitting.

Twenty-five percent of the monaural hearing aid users demonstrated a significant decline in word recognition ability in the unaided ear after five years. Subjects with greater hearing loss were more likely to experience the unaided ear effect. Only six percent of the binaural hearing aid users experienced a significant decline in word recognition. Another study by Silman found that thirty-nine percent of monaural hearing aids users experienced the effects of auditory deprivation. Only four percent of the binaural hearing aid users experienced a similar effect.

Many individuals with hearing impairment wait many years before they try hearing aids. They have gone for a long time without stimulation to either ear, and their ability to understand speech in both ears is often poor. Last month I discussed the benefits of wearing two hearing aids. Two aids are necessary for sound localization and hearing in noise. However, another benefit of wearing two hearing aids (binaural amplification) is to reduce the effects of auditory deprivation. The old expression “use it or lose it” seems to apply to our ability to hear and understand speech.

According to a recent study published in the medical journal Archives of Neurology, adults with hearing loss are significantly more likely than adults with normal hearing to develop dementia. The study was conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins and the National Institute on Aging. The study found that the greater the hearing loss the higher the risk of dementia may open a new avenue of research into dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Men and women in the study who experienced severe hearing loss were five times more likely to develop dementia than those with normal hearing. But even mild hearing loss doubled the risk of dementia.

The study followed 639 people ages 36 to 90 who initially did not have dementia, logic and language that interferes with daily living. The volunteers were tested for hearing loss and dementia every two years for nearly two decades.

Researchers found that those with hearing loss at the beginning of the study were much more likely to develop dementia by the end, even after taking into account age and other risk factors. The risk of dementia only began to rise once hearing loss began to interfere with the ability to communicate. The study also found that hearing loss increased the risk of Alzheimer's disease, but the two were not as strongly linked as hearing loss and dementia.

The social isolation often caused by hearing loss can aid in the development of dementia. Also, it is quite possible that auditory deprivation may be related to the increase in dementia. Auditory deprivation occurs because of inadequate stimulation of the auditory system. As stated above, with auditory deprivation, a person gradually loses their ability to comprehend speech making communication even more frustrating. This is why it is important to wear hearing aids at the early onset of hearing loss to continue stimulation of the entire auditory system.