Cognitive Flexibility and Inhibition in Individuals with Age-Related Hearing Loss.

Shraddha A Shende,Raksha A Mudar,Elizabeth A Lydon,Lydia T Nguyen,Fatima T Husain

doi:10.3390/geriatrics6010022

Shraddha A Shende, Raksha A Mudar + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics6010022

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Abstract

Growing evidence suggests alterations in cognitive control processes in individuals with varying degrees of age-related hearing loss (ARHL); however, alterations in those with unaided mild ARHL are understudied. The current study examined two cognitive control processes, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition, in 21 older adults with unaided mild ARHL and 18 age- and education-matched normal hearing (NH) controls. All participants underwent comprehensive audiological and cognitive evaluations including Trail Making Test-B, Verbal Fluency, Stroop, and two Go/NoGo tasks. Group differences in cognitive flexibility and inhibition as well as associations between peripheral and central hearing ability and measures of cognitive flexibility and inhibition were investigated. Findings revealed that the ARHL group took significantly longer to complete the Stroop task and had higher error rates on NoGo trials on both Go/NoGo tasks relative to the NH controls. Additionally, poorer peripheral and central hearing were associated with poorer cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control. Our findings suggest slower and more inefficient inhibitory control in the mild ARHL group relative to the NH group and add to decades of research on the association between hearing and cognition.

Highlights

Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is the gradual loss of hearing with aging and is one of the most common conditions affecting older adults [1,2]
General linear models (GLMs) were used to examine group differences in performance on measures of cognitive control tasks with group (ARHL/normal hearing (NH) defined on basis of pure-tone average (PTA)) as a between-subject variable and measures of cognitive flexibility and inhibition as within-subject variables
This study examined differences in performance on measures of cognitive flexibility and inhibition between older adults with unaided mild ARHL and NH controls, and associations between measures of peripheral hearing, central hearing, and measures of cognitive flexibility and inhibition

Summary

Introduction

Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is the gradual loss of hearing with aging and is one of the most common conditions affecting older adults [1,2]. Numerous studies suggest that even individuals with milder degrees of hearing loss face significant speech recognition difficulties in noisy environments [14,15,16,17]. These deficits persist even when state-of-theart amplification devices with noise reduction systems are used [18,19], indicating that non-auditory factors may be contributing to these deficits

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