iHeartCinci #208: The Dementia/Hearing Loss Correlation: How to Protect Oneself | Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It’s a health show today. First, we’re talking about hearing loss.
Whether you’re born with it or it’s acquired throughout your lifetime.
It’s more than just an inconvenience. Hearing loss can be dangerous,
from increasing the risk per falls to social isolation, from
miscommunication to brain atrophy and dementia. Your hearing is crucial
to your overall well being. My guests today are doctor

(00:22):
Stephanie Grace and audiologist at Phonak, a hearing aid manufacturer,
and doctor Jennifer Cataphies, owner of Apex Hearing Group in Cincinnati.
They’re both here to explain what to look for when
it comes to hearing loss, when to get help, and
the amazing life changing technology available now to help you
thrive and later. Actor Jason Vanderbeek died earlier this year

(00:44):
from stage three colorectal cancer, the same as Chadwick Boseman,
Christy Ally, and even soccer legend Peley. As the number
one cancer killer for those under the age of fifty,
the incidences of colon cancer are rising today. My guest
is doctor cor Ry Barad, a Mercy Health surgeon, to
explain what the science community knows about the increase in

(01:05):
colorectal cancers and people under fifty and what to do
to minimize your risk.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Now on iHeart Cinsey with Sandy Collins.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Welcome back this week to iHeart Cincy. I am Sandy Collins,
and here is some of the latest stats that we
have coming out of the tri State. Out of Kentucky,
almost fifteen percent of Kentuckian’s have some degree of hearing loss.
In Ohio is a little less thirteen percent. So what
causes hearing loss? While some are born with it a
very small number, others acquire it during their lifetime. And

(01:36):
it affects all ages, all the noise, the loud music,
constant construction, sounds, fireworks, illness, medications, It all contributes. Today
my guests are hearing specialists, Doctor Stephanie Grace, an audiologist
at Phonak, a hearing aid manufacturer here in Cincinnati, and
doctor Jennifer Cataphies, owner of APEX Hearing Group here in Cincinnati. Doctors,

(01:58):
thank you for taking time to come today and welcome
to iHeart Sinsey. Doctor Jennifer, We’re going to start with you.
We understand that untreated hearing loss is linked to an
increased risk of dementia, can you explain more about that.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Hearing loss is linked with cognitive decline and dementia risks.
So studies consistently find that people with hearing loss are
more likely to experience faster cognitive decline and a higher
chance of developing dementia compared to those with normal hearing.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
How does that correlate? Can you explain why your hearing
loss would correlate to memory loss?

Speaker 3 (02:36):
The effort it takes with those with hearing loss to
hear creates a regular strain that interferes with normal cognition.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
So it’s harder on your brain because it’s working harder
to try to it’s that whole.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
If you don’t use it, you lose it mentality, same
as exercising lifting weights. If you’re not working those muscles,
they’re going to deteriorate the brain. Same thing if it’s
not getting that stimulation it needs. So if there’s something
impeding sound from getting from the ear up to the brain,
the brain atrophies or shrinks. Once that has happened, it’s permanent.

(03:16):
So we really want to try and keep that neural
pathway from the ear to the brain stimulated as much
as possible.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
So when there is hearing loss.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
There one of the most important things you can do
is get evaluated and then treated if we find that
there is a hearing loss present.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Babies are tested when they’re born, correct, and then kids
are tested. I guess when they’re in school now, do
they still do that Back in the day we used
to do this screening, and then that’s probably it. If
you’re okay, adults just don’t even think about screening their hearing.
When should adults grown ups like my daughter twenty seven
next month, when should she start thinking about getting a

(03:56):
baseline for her hearing and figuring out what she needs?

Speaker 2 (04:00):
A great question.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
I mean, I don’t think as with like a colonoscopy
or with like a mamogram, that there’s like a set
age right right. But that being said, my personal opinion
is it’s it’s never too early or too late for
that matter, to get your hearing checked, get a baseline audiogram.
I would also say, if you know any kind of

(04:23):
tinatous ringing or noises in the ears, it’s a good
time to go get checked anything unusual. If you feel
like you are just missing out or struggling a little
bit in general, go get a baseline hearing test.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
That’s the issue is that you don’t realize how much
effort it takes when you’re struggling through this. And I’ll
give you full disclosure. I was born with a nerve
loss in my left ear and so I have about
seventy percent hearing on one side and it has profoundly
affected everything I do. It was untreated until I was

(04:57):
in my thirties, although they knew about it, and so
I got some hearing aids back back when they were
still analog, and they were pretty good. They were life changing,
and the vanity went away when you realize it’s more
important for me to be able to hear the siren
of the fire truck that is racing up the street
next to me, and I didn’t hear it. Yes, this happened.

(05:19):
I didn’t hear it, and pulled in front of the
fire truck and he starts slamming on the brakes. And
now that frequency was lower, then I could hear something
was happening. And looked and here’s this enormous fire truck
not ten feet from me, slamming on its brakes because
I didn’t hear the siren coming. It was one of
the most life changing experiences one I would never want

(05:44):
to feel again because it was so frightening, but it
did motivate me to get my hearing checked again at
nearly thirty years old. A Jennifer, we got to talk
about what you can do if you have a hearing
loss and you’re concerned about dementia. Where do we go
with it?

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, that’s a great question. So timely hearing care appears
to lower the risk of developing dementia, even if they
don’t immediately improve memory test scores. So I think it’s
really important to talk about acting as soon as we
feel that there is a problem. A lot of our
hearing lost patients, they begin to withdraw socially and they

(06:23):
begin to stop doing their regular interactions or the regular
daily activities. So when somebody feels even a loved one
in your family, if somebody feels like this is starting
to happen, get a hearing test so it would be
a full comprehensive audiological avail. And then we take a
lot of time to talk with our patients to figure
out what their need is so we can meet each

(06:44):
person’s goals. And everybody has a different goal, right, So
some people are like, hey, I don’t really leave the
house very much. I mostly stay at home. I visit
a couple of my friends on the weekends. Maybe I
go to a couple of doctors appointments during the week
where other people are like, hey, I’m still working for time,
I’m traveling, I’m with my grandkids every single day of
the week.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
So those are two.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Different patients that are going to have two different goals,
and we’re going to have to learn about the patient
and their individual criteria so that we can continue to
service them. As soon as we do a hearing aid evaluation,
we oftentimes recommend a hearing aid demonstration, which could be
to demo one of our products. All of our products,

(07:26):
as you mentioned, are digital. All of our products can
connect to any of our devices through Bluetooth technology.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
That’s amazing.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
It is really great.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
And one of my favorite things is most of our
products are going to be rechargeable hearing aids and so, oh,
you don’t have to change.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
The money I spent right for twenty five years.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
On teeny tiny little batteries it’s hard to handle, Yeah, which.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Are hard to handle.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Inconvenience of it, yeah, rechargeable, rechargeable, So we’re going to
give you a small charging unit. You charge your hearing
aids at the end of every day in a very
similar way as.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
We you charge your cell phone. That’s the end of
your night.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Your hearing aids are going to last during the day.
They will not die for you. So we can connect
you to any of your devices. We can connect you
to your cell phone, your television, to your car, your iPad,
any of your devices so that you have a Bluetooth
connection that is direct, which means that phone call is
going to go directly into the hearing aid.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Hey, if you just tuned in, I’m Sandy Collins and
this is our public affair show iHeart Cincy. My guests
today are a couple of hearing experts. Doctor Stephanie Grace
is an audiologist at phone ac As, a hearing aid manufacturer,
and doctor Jennifer Cataphies, the owner of APEX here in
Group here in Cincinnati. When we’re out in a public

(08:41):
place and there’s a million noises around, people say, well
you can hear. Well, it’s not hearing the sound, it’s
understanding what the words are. And that’s why so many
people isolate.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
Isn’t that right, Stephanie, one hundred percent and I think
another really important feature of our technology these days. It’s
it’s buzzword, artificial intelligence, right, So AI is in everything
and we keep advancing. You had mentioned you had analog devices.
We have come leaps and bounds from analog devices, but
our technology you see it with computers and televisions and

(09:17):
all of the other technologies out there. We continue to
evolve on a daily basis. Every time you think, oh,
it can’t get any better, it gets better. AI is
really important, especially in most challenging listening environments, because we
are able to with phone AC in particular, we have
a product where we are able to actually separate the
speech from the noise in such a way that it

(09:40):
allows people to hear from any direction around them, which
is pretty revolutionary because in the past, up to now,
we’ve relied a lot, very heavily on directional microphones, which
allow people to hear what’s in front of them. Basically,
now eight times out of ten you’re trying to hear
what’s in front of you, but sometimes there is sound
from behind, as you described with the ambulance, for example,

(10:03):
that you may miss if you have directional microphones engaged.
So with our sphere technology, being able to separate the
speech from the noise without having to rely on directionality
is really a huge advancements and hearing it.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
I think consumer technology is making it actually easier. Nobody
wanted to watch close captions on their TVs. Nobody wanted
to go to a movie that had close captions. It
was an annoyance. Well, now that it’s so prevalent, most
people I know put the close captions on because you
are missing so much of the loud noises and the
crashing and Lucas Skywalker and Darth Vader, and you know,

(10:38):
you watch it later and go, wow, that’s what they
were saying. Okay, I missed that part. Same thing with
your hearing. You know, we all have these fancy new earbuds.
Everybody’s listening and now they can adjust the trouble and
the base and the highs and the lows, and now
they realize, wow, this is so helpful. Imagine actually having
a professional pair.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
And that’s really important that you bring that up, because
there are for the counter devices, but they will do
just that. They will amplify only as much as you
know they are designed to do. So having a professional
like doctor Cadify is involved coming to see her at
her practice. She is up to date on all of
these technologies and she can speak for herself.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
But well, and I think it’s really important when we’re
looking at technology. If the technology is easy, then it’s
typically going to work for you. So when Stephanie was
saying that we’ve got a lot of artificial intelligence, and
I’m telling you that we’ve got Bluetooth and rechargeable devices,
a lot of patients can take that is it’s a
very complicated process.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
It’s not at all right.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
So for the audiologists it’s going to get a little complicated.
We have a lot of software that we have to
be responsible for. But for the patient, it’s incredibly easy.
They literally just put the hearing aid in their ear
and they walk away from whatever they’re doing and they
live their life. There is no such thing as changing programs.
Our hearing aids can even change volume control for us autumn,

(12:01):
So as we go in and out of our different
listening environments, that hearing aid is serving your environment and
it will change program for you based off of your
acoustical environment. So that means if you’re in a car,
you’re going to have a special program that’s going to
go into the car program. If you are listening to music,
we have a music program. If you’re just in a

(12:21):
very quiet room, not a lot of speakers, not a
lot of background, that hearing aid is going to go
into a quiet program for you automatically. Patients don’t have
to change programs with a button or a remote control.
We work really hard to keep it as simple for
our patients.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
A hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yeah, I want to stop just real quick and talk
about what it’s like for a person that can’t hear.
I want you to think for just a second about
being in a dimly lit room. There’s hardly any light
on in the room, but you can still make out stuff.
And then imagine trying to read something across the room,
whereas if the lights were on, you’d be able to see.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
It pretty well. You could read that word.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
But you’re looking and you’re squinting, and you’re desperately trying
to see something and you can’t see it. And imagine
the stress that you’re feeling. It’s exhausting. That is similar
to what happens with hearing loss, is that you are
trying to fill in the gaps, trying to understand what

(13:20):
was that word? They just said, trying to understand what
did they mean? You often do miss an enormous amount
of information that you don’t even realize. When you put
that hearing aid in and it’s properly tuned, it’s like
somebody turns the light on.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, it’s a great analogy.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
It is the absolute most amazing feeling. And I will
tell you this, and I don’t know anything about y’all’s
hearing aids. I’m just telling you from the technology itself.
Turning it on and being able to hear, your heart
rate goes down, your shoulders feel relaxed, your stress level
goes down, and then suddenly you’re like, oh my gosh,

(13:58):
I’ve lived X amount of days in my life.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Years stressed out, fatigued, yep.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Exhausted, irritable, getting into fights with people.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
Avoiding going to public places, social situations.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
All of it in the sense of embarrassment as well, right,
because people don’t want to always have to ask for repetition.
They don’t want to say, what did you say? When
we are able to hear but also understand that speech intelligibility,
we feel more confident.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
And your family will love you even more because they’ll
appreciate not having to say it over and over, or
being in the room in front of you. Don’t yell
at me from the kitchen. I can’t understand what you’re saying.
I mean, it doesn’t just affect you. It affects everyone
that you’re around, you in you.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
So the important thing is if you wait until you’re
a grandma or a grandpa. Sometimes it’s harder to adapt
to the technology as soon as you start to notice
that maybe there’s something there, it’s really important to treat it.
It’s easier to adjust to the technology when you first
identify that there’s a problem. People we on average, weight

(15:05):
about five years before they address anything, and they can
do that because it’s painless and it’s invisible to have
hearing loss.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
It is and I’ll just live with it. You can live
it is a problem, sturdy, I can do this.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
But hearing aids are cool now, they really are because
of all the new you know, the Bluetooth makes it
really appealing to people.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
People walk around all day with their air pods in
their ears.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
If they have hearing loss, they should be doing the
same thing, but through a hearing aid that’s actually got
a prescription in there for them, and.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
There’s different designs for the hearing aids, so we don’t
have to make a hearing aid really big and bulky anymore.
We can put a hearing aid down inside of the
ear canal and make it completely invisible. We can put
a hearing aid behind the ear that nobody will see,
so they’re lightweight, they’re comfortable, and most people forget that
they’re even in.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Their een Stephanie Jennifer, thank you so much for coming
in and talking about hearing loss and dementia and all
the things that you guys can do now with this
technology that will help us hear better.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Thanks so much, thank you.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Coming up, we’re going to go from one end of
the body to the other and talk with a colorectal
surgeon about the risks of colorectal cancer and why it’s
increasing and people under the age of fifty. That’s coming
up on iHeartCinci