Effect of simulated acute bilateral severe conductive hearing loss on static balance function in healthy subjects: a prospective observational pilot study

PURPOSE: Maintaining static balance is a process coordinated by central integration of visual, vestibular and somatosensory information. Whether or not hearing and spatial acoustic information contributes to the maintenance of static postural balance is unclear. METHODS: A prospective observational pilot study was performed. Twenty-five normal hearing adults (68% female; 19–31 years) underwent a computerized dynamic posturography test battery including the Sensory Organization Test (SOT), the Motor Control Test (MCT), and the Adaptation Test (ADT). The balance tests were performed two times, in a randomized sequence without or with acute hearing loss. Earplugs (sound insulation 37 dB) or headphones with white noise (sound volume 75 dB) induced the conductive hearing loss. Hence, all participants passed through four sequences of the balance test battery. A repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the results. RESULTS: The ANOVA revealed no difference for any SOT and ADT subtest without hearing loss and simulated hearing loss (either earplugs or headphones; all p > 0.05). The ANOVA showed no longer latencies with simulated hearing loss compared to no hearing loss in both experiments with one exception: the reaction of the right foot during large forward translation was longer with hearing loss than without hearing loss in both experiments (p = 0.025). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, a simulated acute conductive bilateral moderate or severe hearing loss did not disturb the static balance function in normal hearing younger adults in this first small pilot study. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00405-023-07942-w.