Age-Related Hearing Loss Is Associated with Incident Dementia in Adults Over 60

Is age-related hearing loss (HL) a risk factor for incident dementia?

BOTTOM LINE

HL diagnosis was independently associated with incident dementia when compared with no HL diagnosis, and individuals with a more established HL diagnosis demonstrated an increased hazard of dementia.

BACKGROUND: Approximately two-thirds of adults older than age 70 have HL, but few obtain appropriate treatment. Cognitive impairment and dementia are also highly prevalent conditions of later life. Recent studies suggest that HL confers an independent risk of cognitive impairment and incident dementia. If so, treating HL may reduce dementia risk.

STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING: Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Columbia University Irving Medical Center/New York–Presbyterian Hospital, New York, N.Y.

SYNOPSIS: Researchers accessed a New York state claims database to identify 56,523 subjects older than 60 years who had more than two separate claims with a diagnosis of HL between 2007 and 2017. They compared this group with a random sample of claimants without a HL diagnosis, comprising 150,278 subjects. Cox proportional-hazards models were used to examine the relationship of baseline HL with incident dementia, adjusting for age, sex, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, and smoking. Results indicated that the rate of incident dementia was twice as high in subjects with HL (10.2 per 1,000 person-years) compared to subjects without HL (5.4 per 1,000 person-years). Moreover, individuals with a more established diagnosis of HL had a higher hazard of incident dementia. Authors cite current hypotheses for these findings, including cognitive load, changes in brain structure, and social isolation. They note the tremendous potential for relieving the public health burden of dementia if a causal relationship between HL and dementia could be satisfactorily established. Study limitations included the inability to account for all possible confounders in the data during analysis.

CITATION: Chern A, Sharma RK, Golub JS. Hearing loss and incident dementia: claims data from the New York SPARCS database. Otolog Neurotol. 2022;43:36–41.