Perceived Hearing Loss, Social Disengagement, and Declines in Memory.

A growing body of evidence suggests that age-related hearing loss is related to changes in older adults' memory. We test the hypothesis that the association is due to social disengagement following the onset of perceived hearing loss. At ages 65 (2004) and 72 years (2011), 3,986 participants from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) self-reported on hearing problems and several types of social engagement and completed three tests of memory.