Auditory Memory deficit in Elderly People with Hearing Loss

INTRODUCTION: Hearing loss is one of the most common problems in elderly people. Functional side effects of hearing loss are various. Due to the fact that hearing loss is the common impairment in elderly people; the importance of its possible effects on auditory memory is undeniable. This study aims to focus on the hearing loss effects on auditory memory. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Dichotic Auditory Memory Test (DVMT) was performed on 47 elderly people, aged 60 to 80; that were divided in two groups, the first group consisted of elderly people with hearing range of 24 normal and the second one consisted of 23 elderly people with bilateral symmetrical ranged from mild to moderate Sensorineural hearing loss in the high frequency due to aging in both genders. RESULTS: Significant difference was observed in DVMT between elderly people with normal hearing and those with hearing loss (P<0.22). According to the correlation test between Pure Tone Average (PTA) and the mean score of DVMT, increasing PTA resulted in reduction of DVMT score and this result was seen in both genders and all of the studied subjects. CONCLUSION: Apart from aging, age-related hearing loss has shown significant effect on auditory verbal memory. This result depicts the importance of auditory intervention to make better communicational skills and therefore auditory memory in this population.