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Hearing impairment and incident dementia: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Davies, H; Cadar, D; Herbert, A; Orrell, M; Steptoe, A; (2017) Hearing impairment and incident dementia: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society , 65 (9) pp. 2074-2081. 10.1111/jgs.14986. Green open access

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Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether hearing loss is associated with incident physician-diagnosed dementia in a representative sample. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. PARTICIPANTS: Adults aged 50 and older. MEASUREMENTS: Cross-sectional associations between self-reported (n = 7,865) and objective hearing measures (n = 6,902) and dementia were examined using multinomial-logistic regression. The longitudinal association between self-reported hearing at Wave 2 (2004/05) and cumulative physician-diagnosed dementia up to Wave 7 (2014/15) was modelled using Cox proportional hazards regression. RESULTS: After adjustment for potential confounders, in cross-sectional analysis, participants who had self-reported or objective moderate and poor hearing were more likely to have a dementia diagnosis than those with normal hearing (self-reported: odds ratio OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.1–2.4 moderate hearing; OR = 2.6, 95% CI = 1.7–3.9 poor hearing, objective: OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.0–2.8 moderate hearing; OR = 4.4, 95% CI = 1.9–9.9 poor hearing). Longitudinally, the hazard of developing dementia was 1.4 (95% CI = 1.0–1.9) times as high in individuals who reported moderate hearing and 1.6 (95% CI = 1.1–2.0) times as high in those who reported poor hearing. CONCLUSION: Older adults with hearing loss are at greater risk of dementia than those with normal hearing. These findings are consistent with the rationale that correction of hearing loss could help delay the onset of dementia, or that hearing loss itself could serve as a risk indicator for cognitive decline.

Type: Article
Title: Hearing impairment and incident dementia: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/jgs.14986
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jgs.14986
Language: English
Additional information: © 2017, The Authors. The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The American Geriatrics Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: hearing loss; dementia; aging; epidemiology
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Behavioural Science and Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1565349
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