Interesting......
In The Laryngoscope journal, researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, describe how they found older patients with hearing loss appeared better able to balance when their poor hearing was enhanced with hearing aids.
For the study, the researchers enrolled 14 people age 65-91 and used standard balance tests to measure the participants' postural balance when their hearing aids in both ears were switched on and also when the aids were switched off.
Senior author Timothy E. Hullar, professor of otolaryngology at the School of Medicine, says they do not think the improvement in balance was just due to hearing aids helping the patients be more alert.
"The participants appeared to be using the sound information coming through their hearing aids as auditory reference points or landmarks to help maintain balance, " he explains.
Prof. Hullar compares it to when we use our eyes to tell us where we are in space. If we turn the lights off, we tend to sway a bit - more than we do when we can see.