Ashrafi Majid, Baghban Alireza Akbarzadeh
Department of Audiology, Faculty of Rehabilitation, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Proteomics Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Indian J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2024 Aug;76(4):3031-3036. doi: 10.1007/s12070-024-04581-3. Epub 2024 Mar 18.
One of the most obvious functional effects of aging on the cognitive and processing processes of spatial hearing is the localization problem and the disorder of speech perception in noise. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the performance of dynamic spatial auditory processing in the elderly.
This descriptive and analytical study was conducted on 60 young participants aged from18 to 25 years old and 60 elderly participants aged from 60 to 75 old years, using speech, spatial, and qualities of hearing scale (SSQ) questionnaire, binaural masking level difference (BMLD) and dynamic quick speech in noise (DS-QSIN) tests.
Comparing the average scores of the tests and the questionnaire using the independent t test showed a significant difference between the two groups ( < 0.001). It was also found that gender had no effect on the results ( > 0.05).
Aging is accompanied by different structural and functional changes in the auditory central nervous system, which leads to a decrease in speech perception in challenging listening environments, as well as a decrease in sound localization abilities, due to the reduction of temporal and spectral information. This problem affects the determination of the source of sound and the spatial cognition of the elderly and leads to a disturbance in the awareness of the auditory environment. Therefore, auditory rehabilitation programs can cause the improvement of spatial auditory processing performance and improve speech perception in noise in the elderly.
衰老对空间听觉的认知和处理过程最明显的功能影响之一是定位问题以及噪声中语音感知障碍。本研究的目的是调查老年人动态空间听觉处理的表现。
本描述性和分析性研究对60名年龄在18至25岁的年轻参与者和60名年龄在60至75岁的老年参与者进行，使用语音、空间和听力质量量表（SSQ）问卷、双耳掩蔽级差（BMLD）和噪声中的动态快速语音（DS-QSIN）测试。
使用独立t检验比较测试和问卷的平均得分，结果显示两组之间存在显著差异（<0.001）。还发现性别对结果没有影响（>0.05）。
衰老伴随着听觉中枢神经系统不同的结构和功能变化，这导致在具有挑战性的聆听环境中语音感知下降，以及由于时间和频谱信息减少导致的声音定位能力下降。这个问题影响老年人对声源的确定和空间认知，并导致听觉环境意识的紊乱。因此，听觉康复计划可以改善老年人的空间听觉处理表现并提高其在噪声中的语音感知能力。
