Hearing handicap and frailty in community-dwelling older adults living.
Ruana Danieli da Silva Campos, Marisa Silvana Zazzetta, Fabiana de Souza Orlandi and 7 others
PMID 35416836WHAT IT FOUND
Frail and pre-frail older adults in this community reported more hearing handicap than non-frail adults.
The relationship was weak, and the study cannot show hearing handicap causes frailty.
Key findings
01Frail and pre-frail older adults had higher hearing handicap scores than non-frail older adults. Mean HHIE-S scores were 3.7 for non-frail, 6.8 for pre-frail, and 8.9 for frail, with p=0.044 for non-frail versus pre-frail and p=0.015 for non-frail versus frail.
02A positive relationship was found between hearing handicap and frailty scores, with r=0.218 and p=0.001.
03Most participants were pre-frail or frail, and 26.9% reported some perception of hearing handicap.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study looked at hearing handicap and frailty at one time point, so it cannot show which came first or that hearing handicap causes frailty. It did not adjust for age, sex, education, income, ethnicity, or common health conditions, so those factors could explain the relationship. Hearing handicap was measured by self-report, not audiometry, so the actual degree of hearing loss and speech understanding were unknown. The correlation between hearing handicap and frailty was weak. The sample came from one low-income, socially vulnerable community and excluded people who could not communicate or had severe motor deficits, so it may not apply to all older adults.
Declared interests
Financial support came from FAPESP notice PPSUS 2016/2017. The supplied text does not report author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the results as proof that hearing handicap causes frailty or that hearing aids will reduce frailty. The study was cross-sectional, used a self-report hearing handicap measure, found only a weak relationship, and did not adjust for other health or social factors.