Hearing-aid use and long-term health outcomes: Hearing handicap, mental health, social engagement, cognitive function, physical health, and mortality

Abstract

Objective: To clarify the impact of hearing aids on mental health, social engagement, cognitive function, and physical health outcomes in older adults with hearing impairment. Design: We assessed hearing handicap (hearing handicap inventory for the elderly; HHIE-S), cognition (mini mental state exam, trail making, auditory verbal learning, digit-symbol substitution, verbal fluency, incidence of cognitive impairment), physical health (SF-12 physical component, basic and instrumental activities of daily living, mortality), social engagement (hours per week spent in solitary activities), and mental health (SF-12 mental component) at baseline, five years prior to baseline, and five and 11 years after baseline. Study sample: Community-dwelling older adults with hearing impairment (N = 666) from the epidemiology of hearing loss study cohort. Results: There were no significant differences between hearing-aid users and non-users in cognitive, social engagement, or mental health outcomes at any time point. Aided HHIE-S was significantly better than unaided HHIE-S. At 11 years hearing-aid users had significantly better SF-12 physical health scores (46.2 versus 41.2; p = 0.03). There was no difference in incidence of cognitive impairment or mortality. Conclusion: There was no evidence that hearing aids promote cognitive function, mental health, or social engagement. Hearing aids may reduce hearing handicap and promote better physical health.

Key Words::

• Hearing aids
• hearing impairment
• activities of daily living
• mental health
• cognitive function
• social engagement

Acknowledgements

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Aging or the National Institutes of Health.

Declaration of interest: This research was undertaken during a visiting scholarship to the University of Wisconsin funded by the US-UK Fulbright Commission and Action on Hearing Loss awarded to PD. The project described was supported by Award Numbers R37AG011099 from the National Institute on Aging, National Eye Institute, and National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, EY06594 from the National Eye Institute, and by unrestricted funds from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB).

Supplementary material available online

Supplementary Table 1 to be found online at http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14992027.2015.1059503