Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA.
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, USA.
J Appl Gerontol. 2021 Jun;40(6):679-683. doi: 10.1177/0733464820909244. Epub 2020 Feb 28.
A growing body of evidence suggests that age-related hearing loss is related to changes in older adults' memory. We test the hypothesis that the association is due to social disengagement following the onset of perceived hearing loss. At ages 65 (2004) and 72 years (2011), 3,986 participants from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) self-reported on hearing problems and several types of social engagement and completed three tests of memory. We estimated fixed effects regression models. Perceived hearing loss was related to significant decline in memory. Declines in frequency of in-person social contact were also associated with declining memory, but there was no evidence of a mechanism wherein reductions in social engagement explained the association between perceived hearing loss and memory decline. We conclude that self-reported hearing loss and social disengagement are likely independent risk factors for memory loss among older adults.
越来越多的证据表明，与年龄相关的听力损失与老年人记忆力的变化有关。我们验证了这样一个假设，即这种关联是由于感知听力损失后社会参与度下降所致。在 2004 年和 2011 年，威斯康星纵向研究（WLS）的 3986 名参与者报告了听力问题和几种类型的社会参与情况，并完成了三项记忆测试。我们估计了固定效应回归模型。感知听力损失与记忆显著下降有关。面对面社交接触频率的下降也与记忆下降有关，但没有证据表明社会参与度的降低可以解释感知听力损失与记忆下降之间的关联。我们的结论是，自我报告的听力损失和社会参与度下降可能是老年人记忆丧失的独立风险因素。
