2017-03-01
Prevalence of age-related hearing loss, including sex differences, in older adults in a large cohort study
Publication
Publication
The Laryngoscope , Volume 127 - Issue 3 p. 725- 730
Objectives/Hypothesis: To obtain actual status of age-related hearing loss in a general unscreened population of older Dutch adults and to investigate whether the prevalence or degree has changed over time.
Study Design: To investigate the prevalence and degree of hearing loss, we conducted a large prospective cohort study of older adults between February 2011 and July 2015. Methods: Pure-tone air- and bone-conduction thresholds were measured for 4,743 participants.
Results were compared to previous cohort studies. Results: As expected, hearing loss increased with age. We found a correlation of R2 = 0.317 for men and R2 = 0.354 for women (right ears). A prevalence of hearing loss greater than 35 dB hearing level the average of 0.5/1/2/4 kHz in the better ear, was found in 33% of the male and almost 29% of the female participants aged 65 years and older. Compared with previous studies, men had less hearing loss at the frequencies of 2 kHz and above. Hearing thresholds in women were significantly higher at 4 and 8 kHz. The difference in hearing loss between men and women is significantly less than in earlier studies.
Conclusions: Our study confirms that hearing loss is highly prevalent in the general unscreened population of older adults. However, the difference in hearing between sexes was considerably less than previously reported.
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doi.org/10.1002/lary.26150, hdl.handle.net/1765/96188 | |
The Laryngoscope | |
Organisation | Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam |
Homans, N., Metselaar, M., Dingemanse, J. G., van der Schroeff, M., Brocaar, M., Wieringa, M., … Goedegebure, A. (2017). Prevalence of age-related hearing loss, including sex differences, in older adults in a large cohort study. The Laryngoscope, 127(3), 725–730. doi:10.1002/lary.26150 |