Thursday 20 March 2014

Hearing loss accelerates cognitive decline

The hearing loss , even partial or progressive, is never trivial. Even when it is not linked to a serious disease, it remains a major handicap that has a significant impact on daily life. Work, couple, family, friends ... all social relations are based on speech. Any hearing problem inevitably makes the laborious communication, promoting a progressive social withdrawal: first we renounce to loud parties and to engage some conversations, even in the most extreme, out of home event. We exclude gradually to life in society. In his novel The Life muted , David Lodge writes: "The sounds have meaning, they convey information or communicate an aesthetic pleasure. The sound is ugly and meaningless. Deafness of both converts sounds into sounds that you prefer to opt for silence. "Enough said. The French do not seem to take this problem seriously. "The image has become so important in our society that we sometimes forget how the sound is important," asserts Christian Hugonnet, acoustical engineer.

To raise awareness of the sound problems, he founded his Week , a national event whose 11th edition this year will take place from January 27 to February 9. "A French two will never see his life a specialist to check his hearing," worries Jean-Louis Horvilleur, audiologist involved in organizing the event. When people go willingly suffer from tinnitus (ringing or whistling ghost) and hyperacusis (hypersensitivity annoying at certain frequencies). But are more difficult to realize an incipient deafness. "An early treatment with hearing aids adapted yet allows in most cases live a normal life," says Professor Hung Thai-Van, Head of Audiology Department (CHU Lyon, Centre for Neuroscience). "It also helps to slow the loss of hearing." When a person starts to get a bit dull, it is usually because the inner ear is damaged. "We have a capital of 12 500 outer hair cells, 3,000 internal and 30,000 auditory neurons that do not recur," says the doctor. "From the age of 20, we lose between 3.5 and 7% of these hair cells per decade." Different trauma (prolonged listening with headphones, working in a noisy environment, concerts, etc..) Can accelerate the phenomenon . With the loss of these cells, which play a fundamental role in the amplification of sound, hearing becomes less fine, especially in the treble. "As nature abhors a vacuum, the brain regions that manage these frequency ranges will be assigned to other tasks." This neuronal reorganization has the effect of amplifying the deaf patient. "When fitted with prostheses adapted, however, the deaf will retain or recover the brain capacity to process these sounds." Research has shown that deaf seniors also had deleterious effects on the brain. "By listening situation competitive in a noisy canteen for example, the deaf will mobilize his prefrontal lobe to try to isolate certain sounds and analyze them," says Hung Thai-Van.

The normal functioning of this part of the brain, usually devoted to working memory (management and processing of information in the short term) is affected. Cognitive decline and is 30-40% faster in elderly people with presbycusis (slowly progressive bilateral deafness). And the risk of dementia is increased. Regularly testing As the ear is often very gradual decline, experts urge everyone to perform regular tests, even the youngest, which deteriorate more ears constantly having screwed ears headphones diffusing its full volume. "We are now able to anticipate hearing loss by detecting anomalies in the vibrations of ciliated cells, otoacoustic emissions, when stimulated," says Hung Thai-Van. Only problem, hearing tests are very poorly paid, whether by Social Security or mutuals. The hearing screening is free and systematic for infants under 3 months (since May 2012 only). For others, it is unfortunately pay a high price: forty euros per consultation.

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