On the UK news today they are saying that one of the contributing factors to dementia is hearing loss. I can only guess that the link is a lack of aural stimulation.
Hopefully then, if we look at this from an opposing angle, it just might be that anyone involved in frequent critical listening (anyone? 😉 ) may be helping their mental health.
We can but hope!
Hopefully then, if we look at this from an opposing angle, it just might be that anyone involved in frequent critical listening (anyone? 😉 ) may be helping their mental health.
We can but hope!
Careful correlation vs. causation. 😉
But generally keeping intellectually stimulated and exercising regularly are the best two lifestyle factors for staving off dementia (individual results may vary).
But generally keeping intellectually stimulated and exercising regularly are the best two lifestyle factors for staving off dementia (individual results may vary).
I seem to recall reading a report that hearing loss in older adults leads to isolation and loneliness, which then leads to depression.
Dementia is something different alltogether, and is more related to cognitive function. I don't see how hearing loss would contribute to that...
Dementia is something different alltogether, and is more related to cognitive function. I don't see how hearing loss would contribute to that...
Maybe the brain compensates by imagining what the person should hear when they can't. Kind of like a person who losses a limb can have pain like the arm is still there.
I've done critical listening sometimes with my eyes closed where I can literally feel endorphins going off. Stress and pain relief. I totally believe it.
There is brain-imaging (FMRI) data that shows that the process of performing music engages more of the human brain than any other human activity.
I remember that some of the brain areas that become activated include parts of the brain responsible for rhythmic movement, for speech, for logic, for emotions, for visual processing, for logic, and so on. As one book put it, "most of the brain lights up" when a musician is creating music.
Listening to music also fires up many areas of the brain, though not quite as much of it as actually creating music.
The book "This is your brain on music" is an interesting read on this whole topic:
( This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession: Daniel J. Levitin: 9780452288522: Amazon.com: Books )
-Gnobuddy
His "The World in Six Songs" was a bit more speculative, but equally interesting, and don't forget the late Oliver Sacks' "Musicophilia" .
Back in the late 70's Durk Person and Sandy Shaw published a book. It may have been called Life Extension. I wouldn't call them quacks but ..... Well in the book they advocated taking huge doses of a drug that helped dementia. This drug Hydrogene sp? was supposed to mimic a brain hormone that grows some new neurons. At the time the standard dosage for Dementia was from .25 mg to .5 mg daily but they had people taking 10 to 20 mg a day. Well they reported that at that high dosage some people regained a lot of there high frequency hearing after a few months. I think it was rather expensive ~ $50 for 30 of the .25 mg tablets so even if you got a Dr. to write a prescription it would probably be a mighty expensive experiment!
Keeping dementia at bay is a matter of keeping as many senses spinning all the time so that you keep on thinking.
If you do not use your mind it will just slowly fade away.
If you use one sense just make up for it with what you have that is still working.
Individual factors have been pushed one by one in the UK recently in order to distract from a proposed tax law change relating to the way people with dementia are looked after that caused a bit of an upset.
If you do not use your mind it will just slowly fade away.
If you use one sense just make up for it with what you have that is still working.
Individual factors have been pushed one by one in the UK recently in order to distract from a proposed tax law change relating to the way people with dementia are looked after that caused a bit of an upset.
Music therapy certainly stimulates the memory of people who already have dementia, particularly when music is used that they used to listen to when they were younger. There is a charity that provides individual music therapy to people with dementia: Music and Memory. If you have an old iPod you don't use anymore, they'll be happy to get it. See this site The use of music in dementia care | Music for dementia for more information about music therapy in the UK using live music.
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Because of my job I repeatedly had the chance to follow the development of dementia to older people. First to say they all had a very good hearing "before and after". What impressed me was that almost always, these persons while reaching to the "crest" of dementia they became very active messing with too many interests or just giving themselves to one activity kind like an obsession. Somehow it resembles what we are doing here in diyaudio..! Psychologists may have something to say about us and dementia as well. Human brain has to find ways to keep self consciousness under control. If a hobby or some more don't cut it, then dementia. But I'm not a psychologist so, just a thought...
Obsession and mental illness are not that far apart, I would think. Not dementia, maybe. But people who are schizophrenic or bipolar often seem to also develop obsessions.
-Gnobuddy
Actually I think many on this forum are slightly autistic. I can only say that for sure about myself, but many here appear to have similar traits as I have.
Regarding obsessions, in this parody on psychiatric manuals: Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical , written by an autistic person, the first two criteria for recognizing neurotypical people ("normal" people) are preoccupation with social concerns and obsession with conformity.
Regarding obsessions, in this parody on psychiatric manuals: Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical , written by an autistic person, the first two criteria for recognizing neurotypical people ("normal" people) are preoccupation with social concerns and obsession with conformity.
I have worked in a seniores home, and i did not see a correlation between deaf- and dumbness. Just old people who loose everything in the end. But people overdoing things such as drugs, work, friends, matrasses, conformity, hobby and so on are in some way dementing themselves consciously, just to get onto a different track of thinking and living. Even the hard-line conformist wants a change.
You are almost certainly right. It's quite well known now that most "techie" people are likely to fall somewhere along the autistic spectrum.
I fully understand the writer's outrage over discovering that he is "different" and that most normal people consider him to be dealing with a handicap.
But let's look at one of the first things he writes:
Here is a classic example of the autistic mind at work. He interprets the words "How are you today?" entirely literally, as though it was a diagnostic question asked by a technician, "How many volts are there at point A?"
And then he answers equally literally, about his allergies. And doesn't understand why anyone should consider that wrong.
What he fails to realize is that most human communication is not contained in the words, but rather in body language, tone of voice, social custom, external circumstance, et cetera. Being autistic, he probably didn't notice any of those things, anyway.
In this case, the words "How are you today?", if coming from a co-worker at the office, actually communicate "I acknowledge your presence, and I am letting you know that I am not hostile. I expect you to return the same message to me." Nothing more.
Exactly the same words "How are you today?" coming from my wife, mean something else entirely. They mean "You are important to me, I care about your state of mind, tell me how you're feeling right now." The message is not literally in the words.
This is the kind of thing that is entirely obvious to a ten year old girl with normal social skills, but may be completely invisible to an autistic adult with an IQ of 140 and a Master's degree in electrical engineering.
Even in social situations completely lacking in the complexity of human speech, the same sort of failure to communicate can occur. A very smart chemistry grad student I knew once chased a cat in circles around the room at a party he was invited to. We gently stopped him, rescued the cat, and informed him that the cat was terrified, and he was scaring the daylights out of her by chasing her.
He was quite upset - he was under the illusion that he was playing a friendly game of tag with the cat. He had completely failed to interpret all the signs of panic and fear that the cat was displaying quite plainly to all the non-autistic people in the room.
Back to the topic of many of us on this forum being autistic to some degree. I think an interesting question to ask oneself is, "Do I understand living things better, or do I understand non-living things better?"
In my case, I understand very clearly, for example, the nuances of class A, class AB, class B, and class C amplifier operation. But I will never, in a hundred lifetimes, understand on a gut level, why so many young women intentionally seek out relationships with known "bad boys", who then, entirely predictably, proceed to exploit, brutalize, hurt, and abandon them.
(Don't reply with that stuff about the evolutionary benefits of having your baby incorporate aggressive and risk-taking DNA; that's autistic, literal, left-brain talk! What I'm talking about here, is trying to understand why a sane person would have an emotional drive to start a relationship with a person she already knows is a jerk, a creep, an @#%*. You see, here we have a case where a normal person's emotions override logic - exactly the kind of thing autistic people can't make sense of.)
I don't get it. So it's very likely that I am somewhere along the autistic spectrum myself. But, thankfully, not so far that I can't tell a terrified cat from an entertained one.
-Gnobuddy
Reminds me of an old fellow I worked with years ago, Mr. Russ. No matter the greeting, Mr. Russ responded in the same way.
Me: "How are you, Mr Russ?
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
Me: "Good morning Mr. Russ"
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
Me: "Goodbye Mr. Russ"
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
Me: "Hello Mr. Russ"
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
Me: "Mr. Russ, Godzilla just ate our town"
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
😀
Me: "How are you, Mr Russ?
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
Me: "Good morning Mr. Russ"
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
Me: "Goodbye Mr. Russ"
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
Me: "Hello Mr. Russ"
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
Me: "Mr. Russ, Godzilla just ate our town"
Russ: "Fine, How are you?"
😀
Mr. Russ may have been hard of hearing, but he understood the real message, and always gave the proper reply! 😀
-Gnobuddy
He was ancient. - Status
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