[Hearing disorders in peripheral arterial vascular diseases. A contribution on hearing loss in the aged].

Otologic-audiologic examination was carried out in 171 patients (aged between 37-86; average age 64) with confirmed internal angiologic peripheral arterial vascular disease. Additional findings were observed in 94 of these patients who revealed an obliteration of the internal carotid artery or cerebral ischaemic stroke. Diseases of the ear were excluded clinically and audiologically. The mean hearing loss shows a sensory-neural high-tone loss in the tone audiogram. The range of scatter increases proportionately to the increase in tone loss. If compared with the physiologic examination of geriatric patients, the total word comprehension and minimal discrimination loss in the speech audiogram point towards a pathologic impairment of hearing in old age. The total word comprehension amounts to 251.20% in the 51-60 age group, 250.40% in the persons 61-70 years of age, 180.96% for the 71-80 age group and 131.67% for those over 80 years of age. The minimal discrimination loss comprises 4.00% for the 51-60 age group, 4.19% for the 61-70 group, 21.35% for 71-80 age bracket and 35.62% for those over 80. On the strength of these findings, an arterial sclerotic vascular disease should be considered as one of the multifactorial genesis of hearing impairment in old age. Special attention should be focussed on decompensation of the total word comprehension and minimal discrimination loss before the age of eighty. This would contribute towards a differentiation of physiologic and pathologic hearing diseases in old age.