Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Hearing Loss And Verbal Memory Assessment In Older Adults, Christina G. Wong

Wayne State University Dissertations

Prior research has found that adults with hearing loss perform worse on cognitive testing than adults without hearing loss, and some studies have suggested that hearing loss is associated with dementia. Heavy emphasis on tests involving auditory stimuli for memory assessment may result in overdiagnosis of cognitive impairment in individuals with hearing loss. The present study compared visual and auditory versions of a verbal memory test among older adults with and without hearing loss. Forty-one adults with moderate-to-severe, sensorineural hearing loss (HL) and 41 age-matched adults with normal hearing (NH) participated. Age ranged from 55 – 80 years. They completed …