A recent study found a high correlation between wearing hearing aids and reducing dementia risks, and a local audiologist says she’s seen the connection in her own work.

The study, published in JAMA Neurology last year, found that hearing-aid wearers younger than 70 reduce their dementia risk by 61% over a 20-year period. The original study involved 2,953 participants from the Framingham Heart Study, and 20% of participants developed some level of dementia after a two-decade follow up.

Brenda Devereaux, an audiologist at House of Hearing in Orem, said the risk factors for dementia are often exacerbated by hearing loss — and the behaviors people struggling to hear exhibit.

“You’re more likely to be inactive, isolated, embarrassed,” she said. “It’s a cycle that people get into where everything becomes a problem.”

Devereaux said she sees this all the time with patients. She said one individual did not want to go to church because they couldn’t hear the speakers at the pulpit. The wife of another patient thought her husband had given up and stopped listening to her, when in actuality, he couldn’t hear her.

There is also an overlap between hearing loss and not remembering things, and the premise behind it is simple, according to Devereaux.

“When you didn’t hear it to begin with you’re not going to remember it,” she said.

Devereaux said that in her research, seniors with mild hearing loss are two times more likely to get dementia, while those with moderate hearing loss are three times more likely and those with severe hearing loss are five times more likely.

The positive, she said, is it is the largest risk factor to dementia that can be controlled and easily corrected. She said the first step to stop the cycle is for anyone with hearing concerns to consult an audiologist and have an evaluation.