Benefit of hearing aid use in the elderly: the impact of age, cognition and hearing impairment

Tognola, Gabriella; Mainardi, Anna; Vincenti, Vincenzo; Cuda, Domenico

doi:10.14639/0392-100x-2165

Cited by 17 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Elderly people often experience difficulty understanding speech, especially in demanding conditions, although there are large interindividual differences in speech recognition performance among older adults. Considered in isolation, age explains ~ 10–30% of variance in SRT in various tasks for groups of aided or unaided HI listeners (George et al, 2007 ; Van Esch and Dreschler, 2015 ; Bernstein et al, 2016 ; Lopez-Poveda et al, 2017 ; Tognola et al, 2019 ). This indicates that there is a link between age and speech recognition in noise, of lesser importance than the predictive effect of hearing loss mentioned earlier.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributions of Age-Related and Audibility-Related Deficits to Aided Consonant Identification in Presbycusis: A Causal-Inference Analysis

Varnet

Léger

Boucher

et al. 2021

Front. Aging Neurosci.

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The decline of speech intelligibility in presbycusis can be regarded as resulting from the combined contribution of two main groups of factors: (1) audibility-related factors and (2) age-related factors. In particular, there is now an abundant scientific literature on the crucial role of suprathreshold auditory abilities and cognitive functions, which have been found to decline with age even in the absence of audiometric hearing loss. However, researchers investigating the direct effect of aging in presbycusis have to deal with the methodological issue that age and peripheral hearing loss covary to a large extent. In the present study, we analyzed a dataset of consonant-identification scores measured in quiet and in noise for a large cohort (n = 459, age = 42–92) of hearing-impaired (HI) and normal-hearing (NH) listeners. HI listeners were provided with a frequency-dependent amplification adjusted to their audiometric profile. Their scores in the two conditions were predicted from their pure-tone average (PTA) and age, as well as from their Extended Speech Intelligibility Index (ESII), a measure of the impact of audibility loss on speech intelligibility. We relied on a causal-inference approach combined with Bayesian modeling to disentangle the direct causal effects of age and audibility on intelligibility from the indirect effect of age on hearing loss. The analysis revealed that the direct effect of PTA on HI intelligibility scores was 5 times higher than the effect of age. This overwhelming effect of PTA was not due to a residual audibility loss despite amplification, as confirmed by a ESII-based model. More plausibly, the marginal role of age could be a consequence of the relatively little cognitively-demanding task used in this study. Furthermore, the amount of variance in intelligibility scores was smaller for NH than HI listeners, even after accounting for age and audibility, reflecting the presence of additional suprathreshold deficits in the latter group. Although the non-sense-syllable materials and the particular amplification settings used in this study potentially restrict the generalization of the findings, we think that these promising results call for a wider use of causal-inference analysis in audiology, e.g., as a way to disentangle the influence of the various cognitive factors and suprathreshold deficits associated to presbycusis.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributions of Age-Related and Audibility-Related Deficits to Aided Consonant Identification in Presbycusis: A Causal-Inference Analysis

Varnet

Léger

Boucher

et al. 2021

Front. Aging Neurosci.

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“…However, the degree of satisfaction with the hearing aids varies across the population of hearing aid users, which may lead to rare and irregular use of the devices (Lopez-Poveda et al 2017). This variation may be related to individual differences in cognitive abilities (Lunner, Rudner, and R€ onnberg 2009;Tognola et al 2019). In fact, previous research suggests that it is important to take into consideration, and understand the relationship between cognition and speech recognition in noise in individuals with hearing impairment, as cognitive factors may account for individual differences in the benefit obtained from hearing aid signal processing (Akeroyd 2008;Arehart et al 2013;Arehart et al 2015;Davies-Venn and Souza 2014;Desjardins 2016;Foo et al 2007;Lunner 2003;Ng et al 2013;Ohlenforst, Macdonald, and Souza 2015;Tognola et al 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This variation may be related to individual differences in cognitive abilities (Lunner, Rudner, and R€ onnberg 2009;Tognola et al 2019). In fact, previous research suggests that it is important to take into consideration, and understand the relationship between cognition and speech recognition in noise in individuals with hearing impairment, as cognitive factors may account for individual differences in the benefit obtained from hearing aid signal processing (Akeroyd 2008;Arehart et al 2013;Arehart et al 2015;Davies-Venn and Souza 2014;Desjardins 2016;Foo et al 2007;Lunner 2003;Ng et al 2013;Ohlenforst, Macdonald, and Souza 2015;Tognola et al 2019). However, evidence is mixed, as not all research studies support the relationship between hearing and cognition (Desjardins and Doherty 2014;F€ ullgrabe and Rosen 2016;Lopez-Poveda et al 2017;Neher et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of task difficulty, background noise and noise reduction on recall

Micula

El-Azm

et al. 2020

International Journal of Audiology

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Objective: In the present study, we investigated whether varying the task difficulty of the Sentence-Final Word Identification and Recall (SWIR) Test has an effect on the benefit of noise reduction, as well as whether task difficulty predictability affects recall. The relationship between working memory and recall was examined. Design: Task difficulty was manipulated by varying the list length with noise reduction on and off in competing speech and speech-shaped noise. Half of the participants were informed about list length in advance. Working memory capacity was measured using the Reading Span. Study sample: Thirty-two experienced hearing aid users with moderate sensorineural hearing loss. Results: Task difficulty did not affect the noise reduction benefit and task difficulty predictability did not affect recall. Participants may have employed a different recall strategy when task difficulty was unpredictable and noise reduction off. Reading Span scores positively correlated with the SWIR test. Noise reduction improved recall in competing speech. Conclusions: The SWIR test with varying list length is suitable for detecting the benefit of noise reduction. The correlation with working memory suggests that the SWIR test could be modified to be adaptive to individual cognitive capacity. The results on noise and noise reduction replicate previous findings.

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“…Nonetheless, an additional advantage of the Smartphone + App set is the possibility of focusing the microphone and moving it closer to the sound source, thus improving the SNR when listening in noisy environments. Another advantage is the fact that mobile phones are widely distribuited, also in the elderly population, for whom several studies have found association between aided hearing outcomes and cognitive skills 12 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are smartphone applications (App) useful to improve hearing?

Martínez-Beneyto

Franchella

Rodriguez

et al. 2020

Acta Otorhinolaryngol Ital

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SUMMARY The objective of the study is to assess whether a smartphone application (App) designed to improve hearing can improve audiological performance in patients with normal hearing and with varying grades of hearing loss (HL). This is a multicentre prospective analytical study. We performed a battery of audiological tests consisting of pure tone audiometry (PTA) and a word recognition test (WRT) in quiet and in noise at different signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) using or not a smartphone App. Intra-subject results under both conditions were compared to determine the App’s effect on hearing. A survey was also carried out to obtain data on subjective hearing experience with the App. We recruited 55 HL patients and 13 normal-hearing controls between June to December 2017. The results show that use of the App in HL patients improved WRT scores by a mean of 30.3% in quiet, 24.3% in noise + 10 dB SNR, and 20.8% in + 5 dB SNR. App use was identified as a factor that increased word recognition (odds ratio = 1.812, p < 0.05) and 61% of subjects rated sound quality when using the App as good or excellent. The use of a smartphone hearing App improved scores in both PTA and WRT in most cases. Patients with binaural hearing impairment < 60% obtained the best results. Subjective user satisfaction was good in both conditions.

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Benefit of hearing aid use in the elderly: the impact of age, cognition and hearing impairment

Abstract: Benefit of hearing aid use in the elderly: the impact of age, cognition and hearing impairment Il beneficio protesico e il ruolo delle abilità cognitive, dell'età e del deficit uditivo nel paziente anziano

Cited by 17 publications

References 29 publications

Contributions of Age-Related and Audibility-Related Deficits to Aided Consonant Identification in Presbycusis: A Causal-Inference Analysis

Contributions of Age-Related and Audibility-Related Deficits to Aided Consonant Identification in Presbycusis: A Causal-Inference Analysis

The effects of task difficulty, background noise and noise reduction on recall

Are smartphone applications (App) useful to improve hearing?

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