The impact of hearing aids on cognitive function and quality of life in patients with hearing impairment: A cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVE

Age-related cognitive decline involves a complex set of factors. Among these factors, hearing loss is considered to have a significant impact, but the effect of hearing aid use remains unresolved. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of hearing aid use by simultaneously assessing various factors not only cognitive function but also frailty, anxiety, depression, and quality of life (QOL) in patients with hearing loss.

METHODS

The cross-sectional study at the Hearing Aid (HA) Center was conducted between 2020 and 2021. Initially, associations with cognitive function, QOL, frailty, and mental state among patients with hearing loss were examined, irrespective of whether they wore a hearing aid or not. Next, these patients were divided into HA users (using HA for more than 1 year) and non-users (no prior use of HA) with 42 patients in each group. The average age and 6-frequency pure tone audiometry (PTA) was 74.5 ± 6.5 years and 50.6 ± 12.1 dB, respectively. All participants filled out the questionnaire about their life style, medical condition. Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) for cognitive function, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale for mental state, Short Form 36 version 2 (SF-36v2) for QOL, and Kihon Checklist for frailty were compared between HA users and non-users and correlated with the auditory data (PTA and speech discrimination).

RESULTS

Among 84 patients, 40 had an MMSE score ≦26. All eight scores and three components of SF-36v2 were lower than those of the control group. The patients with hypertension were significantly more in HA user than in non-HA user, whereas there was no difference in diabetes, heart attack, stroke and education. Although HA users were older and showed hypertension more their PTA was worse than that of non-users, MMSE scores were not different between the groups. MMSE scores correlated with both PTA and speech discrimination in non-users but not in HA users. However, a multivariate analysis of the effect of HA use on MMSE scores adjusting for age, hypertension, and hearing loss, could not be revealed. The vitality and mental component summary of the SF-36v2 was better in HA users than in non-users.

CONCLUSION

Elderly patients with hearing loss were cognitively impaired and had low QOL. HA users showed better QOL score than non-HA user, especially about the mental condition. The absence of a correlation between MMSE scores and hearing loss in HA users suggests the potential use of HA in preventing cognitive decline.