How Hearing Changes as We Age
September is Healthy Aging Month and October is Audiology Awareness Month, which makes it the perfect time to talk about hearing health. I’m Dr. Shopovick, Audiologist and President of Now Hear This® and I want to take a deeper dive into how hearing changes as we grow older, why it happens, and what we can do about it.
Hearing and Age: What to Expect
Research shows that around age 60, many people begin to experience high-frequency, slight to mild hearing loss. As we move into our 70s and 80s, this hearing decline often becomes more significant. While this change is a natural part of aging, it’s important to understand what’s happening inside the ear.
Inside the Ear: Hair Cell Changes
In the inner ear, the cochlea houses tiny hair cells that detect sound. In youth, these cells are uniform and healthy. By age 60, however, they often show signs of damage and lose their neat shape. Once damaged, these hair cells cannot regenerate.
Several factors contribute to this process:
- Aging – the most common cause
- Noise exposure – why hearing protection is so important
- Genetics – family history can increase risk
- Ototoxic medications – certain drugs, including some chemotherapy treatments, can harm hearing
- And much more! Schedule a comprehensive hearing exam for a full case history from our experienced audiologists
How Sound Travels
Hearing starts when sound enters the outer ear and travels through the ear canal to the eardrum. From there, vibrations pass into the cochlea, which sends signals along the auditory nerve to the brain. The brain then decodes these signals into meaningful sound.
When hearing loss interrupts this pathway, the brain receives less stimulation, which can have wider effects on health.
Why Treating Hearing Loss Matters
Untreated hearing loss does more than make it harder to hear. It can also:
- Increase the risk of dementia and cognitive decline
- Reduce communication and social interaction
- Lead to faster “atrophy” of hearing nerves, similar to muscles that weaken when not used
Studies, including research from Johns Hopkins University, show that hearing aid users reduced their risk of dementia by 48%. This makes early treatment especially important. Learn more about their important work here: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/hearing-aids-may-slow-dementia-onset
Solutions for Hearing Loss
While genetics and aging are beyond our control, treatment options are within reach. Today’s solutions include:
- Hearing aids – the most common and versatile option
- Cochlear implants – for severe or profound hearing loss
- Bone anchored hearing aids – for certain types of hearing loss
Each option stimulates the hearing pathway, keeping the brain engaged and active.
Take Charge of Your Hearing Health
The good news is that treating hearing loss is something you can control. If you have questions or suspect hearing loss, reach out to our clinic at (919) 256-2898. Our team will be more than happy to help you find the right solution.
Thank you for reading, and here’s to healthy hearing and healthy aging!
Transcript:
“Hey everyone, I’m Dr. Shopovick at Now Hear This. And since September is healthy aging month and October is audiology awareness month, I wanted to take a deeper dive into hearing and hearing loss and how it declines as we age or, as I like to say, as we grow up.
First, I want to show you this graph here. At the top we have males and the bottom we have females. If I put this in a little bit closer, you can see the age range—30 years old, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80. At the top is normal hearing. Once we hit the age of about 60, we start to get some high-frequency, slight to mild hearing loss. As we age into our 70s and 80s, we can expect that to drop even further. This is what can be expected as we grow up.
Next, I’m going to show you what is happening in our inner ear. This picture at the top is showing you our hair cells located in the inner ear organ called the cochlea. You can see they’re nice in a uniform shape. They’re not damaged. They’re beautiful. Once we start to hit that age of 60, they start to become a little bit damaged. You can see they lose that uniform shape. They don’t look like this anymore. They are a little bit damaged. Even though aging is one of the main factors of hearing loss, there are other things that can cause this, such as loud noise exposure, which is why it’s really important to wear hearing protection when you’re around loud noises. Of course, there are always genetic factors. If there’s a family history of hearing loss, that may increase your risk. There are also ototoxic medications. A lot of the chemotherapy drugs can be ototoxic to the ear, so certain medications can also damage our hair cells.
Lastly, this is our ear anatomy. If we start at our outer ear, sound comes in through our ear canal, past the eardrum, and then it goes through our cochlea. That’s the inner ear organ I was talking about previously that houses those hair cells. The sound then goes up the auditory nerve straight up to the brain. It’s the brain’s job to decode all that information. This is why treating hearing loss is crucial because it can reduce your risk for dementia and cognitive decline. With hearing aids, when we treat hearing loss, we’re stimulating those hearing nerves and keeping that pathway to the brain clear, active, and stimulated. I always like to use the phrase, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Just like if I were to break my arm and I didn’t go to rehab and didn’t do exercises, my muscles would atrophy. Similar things are happening with our hearing nerves. That is why we want to treat hearing loss as soon as we can.
There are many studies out there, including a lot done by Johns Hopkins. We’ll link those below. They actually found that hearing aid users reduced their risk of dementia by 48%, which I thought was a crazy number. Some things are not preventable, like our genetics, but treating hearing loss is something in our control and something we can fix by getting hearing aids, cochlear implants, or bone anchored hearing aids. There are a lot of solutions out there to help you with your hearing loss. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our clinic or comment below. We will be more than happy to assist you. Thank you so much for joining me in this video today and I hope you all have a lovely day. Bye.”
