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Comment by wirrbel | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t that common knowledge? Or let me rephrase this: this can be observed by laypeople in their communities.

I am glad that it’s also scientifically studied if the body of evidence hasn’t been large enough so far

I suspect most people think that both are caused by old age, rather than that deafness causes (or accelerates) dementia. It's not like there's a well known group of congenitally deaf people who get dementia young to inspire a causal connection.

My mum started noticeably losing her hearing after her dementia symptoms got quite bad. She may well have lost her hearing sooner and we just didn't notice, just as in retrospect there were huge warning signs of dementia well before the diagnosis and we just didn't realise what we were observing.

May I ask what the huge warning signs were?

Thinking I was born 3 years earlier than I was. Forgetting how to read maps. Higher anxiety causing her to ask me to drive dangerously slowly, and in so doing revealing she didn't know the speed limit on that category of road. Forgetting to renew her road tax (I have no idea how she wasn't fined for that, given the rest of the family noticed this six months after it was due).

>It's not like there's a well known group of congenitally deaf people who get dementia young to inspire a causal connection.

Hearing ability and cognitive ability are significantly correlated, independent of age.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581793/

The important point was "well known", in this context by the general population rather than to subject experts.

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