A new study, carried out by the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute (SKERI), San Francisco, has shed new light on the association between vision and hearing impairments in the elderly. The study was presented at a poster session at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology held on May 2nd.
Researchers measured the vision of a large group of elders along multiple dimensions and related the results to the outcome of a hearing screening. The results demonstrate that having a hearing impairment increases the likelihood of one's vision also being impaired as measured by standard eye charts. While the prevalence of hearing loss and vision loss both increase with advancing age, this study found that the prevalence of combined vision and hearing loss is much higher - approximately five times higher - than expected if each were independent phenomena. In addition, the strength of the association increases with age. The study also demonstrated that even among those elderly who have normal vision as measured by standard clinical tests, poor low contrast vision in dim lighting or in the presence of glare are common and strongly associated with hearing loss. In other words, individuals failing the hearing screening had results on non-standard vision tests that indicated trouble seeing under conditions of low contrast, particularly under dim illumination (such as a typical living room) and in the presence of glare.
According to Dr. Marilyn Schneck, one of the researchers on the SKERI study, other studies have shown an association between age-related eye diseases (age-related macular degeneration and cataract) and hearing, suggesting there may be a common underlying cause. The association between vision and hearing loss continues to be one of the many research topics currently underway at the institute.
These data pose several clinical implications for audiologists working with the elderly, particularly for patient counseling and rehabilitation. Compensatory strategies such as speechreading and using visual cues are essentially low contrast tasks that may pose difficulty even in the presence of normal vision. Collaboration with eye care professionals and low vision clinics may be indicated in assisting elderly patients with hearing loss to maximize visual abilities. In addition, working with general practitioners, ophthalmologists, and optometrists to promote mutual vision and hearing screenings is more critical than ever, given the new associations between vision and hearing established by this study.
About The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute
The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute is a nonprofit independent research institute and is associated with California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. Dedicated to research on human vision, it was founded to encourage a productive collaboration between the medical clinic and the scientific laboratory. Smith-Kettlewell's research staff is drawn from diverse scientific and medical backgrounds, including ophthalmology, neurology, experimental psychology, engineering, physics, optometry, biophysics and audiology. In addition, it supports several post-doctoral fellows annually and the combined laboratories may host as many as eight fellows in the various training programs.
Smith-Kettlewell conducts research on many different topics, but its main interests are: clinical studies which relate directly to the diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases and disorders;the development of devices and vocational programs to aid the partially sighted, blind and hearing impaired - the major focus of the Rehabilitation Engineering and Research Center (RERC);and basic research to understand how the eye and brain work, which provides a fundamental background for both the clinical and rehabilitation programs.
Study Finds New Links Between Vision and Hearing
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