Indicators of cognitive decline in persons with presbycusis

Introduction. Presbycusis or age-related hearing loss is a physiological elevation of hearing threshold and is one of the leading chronic health problems. A growing number of studies show a correlation between hearing loss in old age and decline in cognitive function. Material and Methods. The Serbian version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test was used, and the study included 56 subjects with a confirmed diagnosis of presbycusis of which 29 (51.8%) were hearing aid users. Results. The score of cognitive function in the respondents was lower compared to the results of previous research (mean = 19.07; standard deviation = 5.03). Also, there were significant differences between the scores of cognitive function in persons who used amplification and persons who did not. There was no significant correlation between gender, employment status, and the degree of hearing impairment, while the correlation was significant between the level of education, age, the length of hearing aid use, and the number of hours per day a person used a hearing aid. Regression analysis showed that about 88% of the variance of the dependent variable could be explained by four variables: age, level of education, length of hearing aid use, and daily level of hearing aid use. Conclusion. Persons with presbycusis from the territory of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina showed poor performance scores on the cognitive ability test compared to the results of other researchers. The results showed that the length of hearing aid use and the daily level of hearing aid use significantly affect the cognitive functions in persons with presbycusis.