A Retrospective Examination of the Effect of Diabetes on Sensory Processing in Older Adults

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine retrospectively the impact of diabetes mellitus on auditory, visual, and tactile processing in older adults. Method: Fourteen (10.4%) of a sample of 135 older adults self-reported the presence of diabetes mellitus in a study of sensory and cognitive processing across the adult lifespan. In this study, the performance of the subgroup with diabetes on a number of psychophysical sensoryprocessing measures was compared with that of the 121 older adults without diabetes. Measures of sensory processing focused on temporal processing and threshold sensitivity in each of 3 sensory modalities: hearing, vision, and touch. Results: The subgroup of older adults with diabetes differed significantly (p < .05) from the larger group without diabetes only for measures of auditory temporal-order and temporal-masking identification tasks. Conclusion: This retrospective study provides additional evidence in support of higher level auditory-processing deficits in older adults with a positive history of diabetes mellitus.

Visual-motor integration scale for Korean elderly (VMIS-KE) is an effective indicator for cognitive changes in diabetic older adults

“…Contrary to the results of this study, the VMI of diabetic older adults was significantly lower along with cognitive function (Yun et al, 2013). In a retrospective study (Humes, 2016), sensory processing tasking found differences more sensitively than cognitive function tests comparing the diabetic and nondiabetic older adults. Therefore, with a comfortable reading print size, verification of the difference in VMI between diabetic and nondiabetic older adults needs to be reconfirmed through future studies.…”

“…Especially, visual-somatosensory integration and motor function could deteriorate in diabetic older adults ( Mahoney et al, 2021 ). Sensory processing tasking could detect differences more sensitively than cognitive function tests between diabetic and nondiabetic older adults ( Humes, 2016 ). MMSE, which is traditionally widely used to measure cognitive function, has limitations in finding such differences.…”

“…Sensory processing tasking could be a more sensitive measure than traditional cognitive function tests in diabetic older adults ( Humes, 2016 ) because diabetes deteriorated visual-somatosensory integration and motor function ( Mahoney et al, 2021 ). Visual-somatosensory integration in older adults is associated with cognitive impairment ( Mahoney and Verghese, 2020 ).…”