How Hearing and Vision Loss Increase the Risk of Dementia

Adults over age 65 who experience vision loss have a nearly 50 percent increased risk of developing dementia. If those vision problems are corrected, that risk drops dramatically.

That’s according to a report published last week by an international commission focused on dementia prevention, which added vision impairment to its list of 14 total modifiable risk factors for dementia. Other risk factors include smoking, diabetes, social isolation and hypertension.

Experts say the addition of vision loss is not a surprise, particularly given that another sensory impairment — hearing loss — has been linked to dementia and is also on the list.

Here’s what we know about how even mild to moderate vision and hearing impairment increase the risk for dementia, and what to do about it.

How Sensory Loss May Contribute To Dementia

People with sensory loss have less input coming into their brains. Brain tissue is “use it or lose it,” so less stimulation could lead to more atrophy, said Gill Livingston, a professor of psychiatry at University College London, who led the dementia prevention commission.

The area of the brain that processes auditory information is close to the region most affected by Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting there may be an anatomical connection. Visual information is fed into another part of the brain, but how we use that information activates many different regions.