Detecting Cognitive Function Decline with Cognitive Screening
A ten year study carried out by Dr. Frank Lin established that there is an up to five-fold increase in dementia for individuals with mild, medium, or severe hearing loss.
We utilize a breakthrough technology known as Cognivue Screening in order to enhance the level of custom hearing care we are able to provide.
The Hidden Link Between Hearing Loss and Cognitive Decline
A 25 year-long French study in the Journals of Gerontology demonstrated an increase in the cases of disabilities, dementia, and depression among elderly men as hearing loss continued to increase, supporting the research of Dr. Lin.
How hearing loss connects to increasing your risk for developing dementia and early cognitive decline is complex, but the link is the cause of concern for our doctors of audiology.
In our efforts to help you and your family live a more independent and richer lifestyle through better hearing, you can take advantage of our advanced diagnostic technology to measure how your hearing loss challenges might be affecting your cognitive health.
We utilize a breakthrough technology known as Cognivue Screening in order to enhance the level of custom hearing care we are able to provide.
Four Ways Hearing Loss and Cognitive Decline Are Linked
The American Academy of Neurology describes four different ways hearing loss and cognitive decline are linked.
1. Common Risk Factors
Hearing loss often accompanies other negative health conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, which also tend to place individuals with those conditions at greater risk for decreased cognitive health. The link between the two is probably the narrowing of blood vessels, common in these conditions, which also occurs in the network of small blood vessels that feed the cochlea that sometimes contribute to hearing loss.
2. Mental Overload
The task of conducting, analyzing, and processing sound by central auditory pathways becomes more difficult when receiving muted sound signals from the auditory system, leading to mental overload. To make up for the fact that mental resources are spread too thin, other parts of the brain, especially those involved in thinking and memory, pitch in to help, redirecting thinking and memory resources to process hearing rather than cognitive functions.
3. Structural Changes
Muscular atrophy, or shrinking, occurs when a muscle sees a limited or decreased amount of activity. This occurs in your brain when there are weak or absent sound signals to process, changing the brain’s structural capacity.
4. Social Isolation
University of British Columbia researchers demonstrated an increase in social isolation by a factor of 52% for every 10-decibel drop in hearing capacity. This occurs due to the stress and discomfort involved with struggling to keep up with conversations in noisy settings. Social isolation makes a significant contribution to cognitive decline.
Book a Cognitive Screening
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What Is Cognivue Screening and How Does It Work?
Cognivue Screening is a specialized tool that our team uses to help you identify and manage your cognitive decline. It serves as an advanced tool for measuring cognitive decline and developing the right hearing care treatment plan, and it provides helpful insight in selecting the hearing aid technology.
This form of cognitive testing utilizes a personalized, consistent, and reliable assessment of your overall brain health, establishing a baseline score against which you and your doctor can monitor and detect changes as they develop, utilize new interventions when levels decline, and measure the success of interventions already in place.
Some of the features of Cognivue screening include:
- Quick assessments (about 10 minutes)
- Non-invasive
- Interactive and intuitive
- Self-administered
- Immediate results after testing
- Easy to understand results
- Secure and confidential
A special characteristic of Cognivue testing is its capacity to adapt the test according to your performance using unique software algorithms that help improve testing accuracy by eliminating testing variability.
Meet Others Who Have Optimized Their Hearing Health
"To anyone concerned about their hearing, I’d say run, don’t walk. The staff is truly amazing"
Frank S.
"Everyone was kind and helpful and made me feel relaxed, especially Kimberly—she’s the best!!"
Mark C.
"They are very friendly and understanding! They give you the quality of life that you’re missing!"
"I have been to many hearing centers over the years...Duncan Hearing is one of the best."
Philip P.
What Cognitive Screening Results Show
Each of the five scores provided in the results of cognitive testing has a direct audiological connection.
1. Memory Score
Your ability to sort out complex sentences, follow abstract thoughts, and comprehend speech in a degraded sound environment, as well as the capacity to retain information while processing the same or new information at the same time, is reflected in your memory score.
2. Visuospatial Score
Your visuospatial score indicates how well you are able to process and interpret visual stimuli, like how things are related to each other in space. However, your visuospatial capabilities go beyond peripheral processing to include your ability to identify where sound or a voice is coming from, how well you’re able to use visual cues, and your capacity to process complex sentences and speech in a degraded sound environment.
3. Executive Function Score
The executive function of your brain measures your ability to coordinate and control higher order cognitive processes. Your executive function score indicates your ability to guide your level of attentiveness, planning, problem solving, and more skills necessary for focusing on a single speaker in a noisy environment, multiple speakers talking at the same time, or your capacity to focus on speech while ignoring irrelevant distractions during a conversation.
4. Reaction Time
The speed at which your brain produces a response after the perception of a sound is reflected in your reaction time score. This helps to identify whether you respond within an appropriate time frame when sound or speech signals dictate a quick reaction.
5. Processing Speed
When you mentally process a task or attempt to follow a complex conversation, especially in a degraded or noisy sound environment, the amount of time it takes to respond properly is reflected in your processing speed score.
Schedule a Cognitive Screening
With our cognitive screenings, we can help you not only with your hearing, but with limiting the effects your hearing loss challenges have on your cognitive abilities.
If you, or a loved one, struggles with recall, making decisions, losing your sense of direction, or other cognitive issues along with signs of hearing loss, submit the adjacent form to schedule a Cognitive Screening with one of our doctors of audiology.
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