Senile dementia is a syndrome that affects approximately 50 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Characterized by a “impaired cognitive function“, it manifests itself through “memory lapses”, a tendency to get lost in familiar places, a loss of reference points in time, difficulties in recognizing loved ones and friends, behavioral problems… In the majority of cases (60% to 70%), senile dementia is caused by Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers at the University of Oxford (in England) have just identified an “alarm signal” which should suggest the onset of senile dementia: the fact of not being able to hear someone speak in a noisy environment.
Can’t follow a conversation in a noisy environment? Watch out for dementia
The British researchers worked from medical data on 82,000 adults, men and women aged 60 and over. At the start of the study, participants’ hearing was measured: none suffered from senile dementia.
Eleven years later, 1285 volunteers had developed senile dementia: “people who had poor hearing were almost twice as likely to suffer from dementia compared to people with good hearing“note the scientists, who published their work in the Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Having poor hearing (or hearing loss) and, in particular, having difficulty following a conversation in a noisy environment (a bar, a restaurant, etc.), should therefore lead to consultation , according to the researchers.
The factors favoring the onset of senile dementia are now known: these are age (the syndrome rarely occurs before the age of 65), social isolation, low cognitive stimulation, depression, cardiovascular disorders and low level of education.
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