Citation

Kamil RJ, Betz J, Powers BB, Pratt S, Kritchevsky S, Ayonayon HN, Harris TB, Helzner E, Deal JA, Martin K, Peterson M, Satterfield S, Simonsick EM, Lin FR. J. Aging Health 2015; 28(4): 644-660.

Affiliation

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0898264315608730

PMID

26438083

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to determine whether hearing impairment (HI) in older adults is associated with the development of frailty and falls.

METHOD: Longitudinal analysis of observational data from the Health, Aging and Body Composition study of 2,000 participants aged 70 to 79 was conducted. Hearing was defined by the pure-tone-average of hearing thresholds at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz in the better hearing ear. Frailty was defined as a gait speed of <0.60 m/s and/or inability to rise from a chair without using arms. Falls were assessed annually by self-report.

RESULTS: Older adults with moderate-or-greater HI had a 63% increased risk of developing frailty (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 1.63, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.26, 2.12]) compared with normal-hearing individuals. Moderate-or-greater HI was significantly associated with a greater annual percent increase in odds of falling over time (9.7%, 95% CI = [7.0, 12.4] compared with normal hearing, 4.4%, 95% CI = [2.6, 6.2]).

DISCUSSION: HI is independently associated with the risk of frailty in older adults and with greater odds of falling over time.

Language: en