Hearing-aid use and long-term health outcomes: Hearing handicap, mental health, social engagement, cognitive function, physical health, and mortality

Abstract

Objective To clarify the impact of hearing aids on mental health, social engagement, cognitive function, and physical health outcomes in older adults with hearing impairment. Design We assessed hearing handicap (Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly; HHIE-S), cognition (Mini Mental State Exam, Trail Making, Auditory Verbal Learning, Digit-Symbol Substitution, Verbal Fluency, incidence of cognitive impairment), physical health (SF-12 physical component, basic and instrumental activities of daily living, mortality), social engagement (hours per week spent in solitary activities) and mental health (SF-12 mental component) at baseline, 5 years prior to baseline, and 5 and 11 years after baseline. Study sample Community-dwelling older adults with hearing impairment (N=666) from the Epidemiology of Hearing Loss Study cohort. Results There were no significant differences between hearing aid users and non-users in cognitive, social engagement or mental health outcomes at any time point. Aided HHIE-S was significantly better than unaided HHIE-S. At 11 years hearing aid users had significantly better SF-12 physical health scores (46.2 versus 41.2; p=0.03). There was no difference in incidence of cognitive impairment or mortality. Conclusion There was no evidence that hearing aids promote cognitive function, mental health, or social engagement. Hearing aids may reduce hearing handicap and promote better physical health.

Longitudinal Relationship Between Hearing Aid Use and Cognitive Function in Older Americans

“…Cross‐sectional studies from the United States and United Kingdom have reported that hearing aid use is associated with better cognitive scores, although a study using a cross‐sectional cohort from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging found no significant relationship between hearing aid use and cognitive ability . The insignificant effect of hearing aid use on cognitive function was also shown in several small longitudinal studies of short duration …”

Abridged geriatric assessment is a better predictor of overall survival than the Karnofsky Performance Scale and Physical Performance Test in elderly patients with cancer

“…Components of CGA have also been evaluated as a screening tool to proceed with CGA, particularly the instrumental activities of daily living which had the highest predictive values [43]. These findings were also demonstrated in prospective studies [52][53][54][55], even after adjustment for confounders [55,56]. Conversely, in a survey including nearly 5000 elderly patients from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the effect of visual impairment on mortality was explained through impairment in the activities of daily living [57].…”

Using a Digital Language Processor to Quantify the Auditory Environment and the Effect of Hearing Aids for Adults with Hearing Loss

“…These studies relied on self-report questionnaires measuring perceived social participation and restrictions. On the other hand, Dawes et al (2015) measured social engagement via self-estimated number of hours per week spent in solitary activities and found that hearing aid use did not affect social engagement. Similarly, Vestergaard (2006) found that the self-reported auditory lifestyles of older adults did not differ when measured before and three months after hearing aid fitting.…”

“…First, they are sensitive to the effects of hearing aid amplification (Cox and Alexander, 1995; Perez et al, 2014; Dawes et al, 2015). Second, they contain questions that were expected to be relevant to the LENA results.…”