I found it a bit confusing and I'll probably have difficulty explaining but...

I read it a couple of times and the original JAMA Neurology study as well. They seemed to mention the effects of deafness on socialization and how that in itself is a risk. That's the area I picked up on in particular.

The thing is that by choice I am not a social person and I do have some hearing loss but my hearing loss doesn't affect how social I am. It also doesn't affect my watching news, movies or shows on a computer. Headphones are great for that. I do not watch actual television on a tv. I don't have a tv set up. I always had trouble with distortion of sound and the competition with other noises in the room. When I did have tv set up I only enjoyed it if I was wearing special headphones. Sensory difficulties. In fact I believe I have over-compensated with reading, so I would hope that my continued learning via my vision would be enough to keep the cognitive areas working quite well. Maybe not according to the information in the study?

I guess if one was hearing impaired and visually impaired that would be a totally different thing especially for people who are social beings. It always seems to come back to social skills and for those of us who are a little differently abled and don't find happiness in socializing, then it would be just awful that it could lead into dementia.

Then again for those who are seriously hearing impaired, perhaps it's a bit the same in that there is so much distortion with sounds that it makes people unable to both socialize or listen to any sounds on a computer or tv etc. and that slows down the learning process and leads to decline and onto dementia?

Is that what they're saying? That the hearing loss makes people less social and therefore raises the risk of dementia? I may have it all wrong. I shall read it again.