THURSDAY, Sept. 10, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Changes in a person’s voice might be an early warning sign of brain decline and dementia.

People with worsening voice quality — changes in pitch, clarity, loudness — who aren’t suffering from hearing loss have a 58% greater risk of cognitive impairment and dementia, researchers reported recently in the Journal of Voice.

The risk is more than doubled if people have voice problems and hearing loss, results showed.

“Voice disorders may be an earlier and stronger sign of cognitive decline than hearing loss alone,” senior researcher Dr. Robert Sataloff said in a news release. He’s chair of Drexel University’s College of Medicine in Philadelphia.

“We found the strongest link with dementia among patients experiencing a voice disorder and hearing loss,” Sataloff said. “But importantly, we found that those with a voice disorder and no hearing loss were at greater risk than patients who experience hearing loss only."

Hearing loss has previously been identified as a risk factor for dementia, with research showing that people who use hearing aids have lower odds for brain decline than those who don’t, researchers said in background notes.

However, the research team suspected that voice disorders might also be linked with dementia, given that other degenerative brain illnesses like Parkinson’s disease cause vocal changes.

Between 75% and 90% of Parkinson’s patients develop impaired voice quality and slurred speech, either prior to or during the course of their disease, researchers noted.

For the new study, researchers tracked data on more than 833,000 patients ages 50 and older, comparing the ongoing brain health of those who’d been diagnosed with a vocal disorder against those who hadn’t been.

Results showed that people with a vocal disorder had a higher risk of brain decline within a year of their diagnosis.

Researchers also found that hearing loss alone was associated with a 27% increased risk of cognitive decline, supporting the previously reported link between hearing loss and dementia.

People with both hearing loss and voice problems combined had a more than doubled risk of brain decline, the study found. These folks were also older and had higher rates of other health problems like high blood pressure, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The study wasn’t designed to explain why voice problems are tied to dementia, but it could be that changes in a person’s voice impact the way they interact with others, Sataloff said.

“If you have a voice disorder that impacts how your voice sounds or if it’s painful when you attempt to talk or sing, it’s only natural to participate less often in brain-supporting social or other engaging activities,” Sataloff said. “We already see this in patients with Parkinson’s disease, in which voice disorders often precede other physical signs of the disease.”

It’s also possible that voice disorders might be affected by the same biological processes that later produce cognitive decline, with Parkinson’s again serving as a useful comparison, researchers said. 

In the meantime, people who develop changes in their speech or voice should reach out to a doctor, Sataloff said.

“It may be valuable for many of these patients to talk with an otolaryngologist who can arrange a cognitive assessment to help patients develop an appropriate care plan,” Sataloff said.

More information

The Alzheimer’s Association has more on early warning signs of dementia.

SOURCES: Drexel University, news release, Sept. 3, 2026; Journal of Voice, Aug. 10, 2026