Associations Between Self-Reported Sensory Impairment and Risk of Cognitive Decline and Impairment in the Health and Retirement Study Cohort

Abstract

Objectives We aimed to determine whether self-assessed single (hearing or visual) and dual sensory (hearing and visual) impairments are associated with cognitive decline and incident possible cognitive impairment, no dementia (CIND) and probable dementia. Method Data were drawn from the 1996–2014 surveys of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), involving 19,618 respondents who had no probable dementia and who were aged 50 years or older at the baseline. We used linear mixed models to test the association between self-assessed sensory impairment and cognitive decline followed by a Cox proportional hazard model to estimate the relative risk of incident possible CIND and probable dementia associated with the presence of sensory impairment. Results Respondents with self-assessed single and dual sensory impairment performed worse in cognitive tests than those without sensory impairment. The fully adjusted incidence of developing possible CIND was 17% higher for respondents with hearing impairment than those without hearing impairment. Respondents with visual impairment had 35% and 25% higher risk for developing possible CIND and probable dementia, respectively, than those without visual impairment. Respondents with dual sensory impairment at baseline were 38% and 26% more likely to develop possible CIND and probable dementia, respectively, than those with no sensory impairment. Discussion Self-assessed sensory impairment is independently associated with cognitive decline and incident possible CIND and probable dementia. Further studies are needed to identify the mechanism underlying this association and to determine whether treatment of sensory impairment could ameliorate cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia among older adults.

Does Treating Hearing Loss in Older Adults Improve Cognitive Outcomes? A Review

“…Although still limited in number, these studies report consistent results, supporting the hypothesis of an increased risk of dementia which remains significant even after statistically accounting for potential confounders such as demographic and/or cardiovascular factors. Such results have been gathered from studies considering hearing loss either with audiometric measures [15,27,28], speech recognition tests [29], or indirect/self-reported measures [30][31][32]. Although most of the studies considered peripheral hearing loss, the link between age-related central auditory processing disorder [33] and cognitive decline and/or dementia has also been reported by two longitudinal studies [34,35].…”

Hearing‐impaired population performance and the effect of hearing interventions on Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA): Systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…6,7 Moreover, a similarly significant association has also been found between cognitive decline and self-reported hearing difficulties in older adults without standardised hearing tests. 8 Routine cognitive screening tools rely on oral administration of instructions and stimuli and implicitly assume normal hearing. Individuals with hearing loss may, however, make frequency-specific phoneme errors that correspond to their audiometric profile, and thus fail elements of the test due to their poor hearing rather than cognitive impairment, potentially leading to false-positive results when screening for potential cognitive impairment.…”

Trajectories of recall memory as predictive of hearing impairment: A longitudinal cohort study

“…The Sense-Cog WP1 group are Geir Bertelsen 1,2 , Suzanne Cosh 3 , Audrey Cougnard-Grégoire 4 , Piers Dawes 5 , Cécile Delcourt 4 , Fofi Constantinidou 6 , Andre Goedegebure 7 , Catherine Helmer 4 , M. Arfan Ikram 8,9 , Caroline CW Klaver 8,10 , Iracema Leroi 11 , Asri Maharani 11,12 , Magda Meester-Smor 8,10 , Virginie Nael 4 , Neelke Oosterloo 7 ; Neil Pendleton 11,12 , Henrik Schirmer 13 , Gindo Tampubolon 14 , Henning Tiemeier 8,15 , Therese von Hanno 16,17 .…”

“…There is growing evidence that hearing impairment is independently associated with the magnitude of cognitive decline [4,5] and incident dementia [6][7][8][9]. In an earlier analysis of three nationally representative longitudinal data sets from the United States and Europe, we found that sensory (hearing and/or visual) impairment was associated with accelerated cognitive decline among people aged 50 or older and that the association was stronger among those with dual sensory (hearing and visual) impairment [10].…”