Use of Hearing Aids and Functional Capacity in Middle-Aged and Elderly Individuals

Introduction Hearing loss is among the sensory changes strongly associated with loss of functional capacity. Objective It aims to determine whether the use of hearing aid contributes to the improvement of instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) for middle aged and elderly hearing-impaired individuals. Methods This is a descriptive, longitudinal, and interventional study. We evaluated 17 subjects, 13 (76.5%) female, aged between 58 and 96 years old (mean 77.1 ± 10.4 years). All were new users of hearing aids. Evaluation included social history, pure tone audiometry, and scale of IADL developed by Lawton and Brody. The subjects were presented daily life situations and were expected to respond if they could do them without assistance (3 points), partially assisted (2 points) or if they were unable to perform them (1 point). IADL was applied before the use of hearing aids adaptation and after a three- and six-month period of use. Results Data analysis revealed that before the use of hearing aids the average score obtained by the subjects was 22.94 ± 4.04 points. Three months after beginning the use the average score was 23.29 ± 4.12 and after six months the average score was 23.71 ± 3.69 points. Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference between scores obtained before the use of hearing aids and six months post-fitting (p = 0.015*) Conclusion The use of hearing aids among the subjects evaluated promoted positive changes in performing IADL, especially to using the telephone.