title: Estimating the Years Lived With and Without Age-Related Sensory Impairment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The aim of this study was to estimate the expected years lived with hearing impairment, vision impairment, and dual sensory impairment among older adults.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 4,160 adults (45.1% men) from two Australian community based studies were followed for up to 16 years (average 8.9 years). Hearing impairment was defined by a pure-tone average (500-4000 Hz) greater than 25 dB in the better ear. Vision impairment was defined by presenting distance visual acuity worse than 6/12 (20/40). Postliminary analyses were also conducted for moderate levels of sensory impairment. Dual sensory impairment was defined by concurrent hearing and vision impairment. Multistate Markov models were used to calculate sensory life expectancies based on transition probabilities between health states (no sensory impairment, sensory impairment, and death).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Based on thresholds for mild impairment, men aged 65 had a total life expectancy of 19.4 years, and were estimated to live for 10.4 years (95% confidence interval [CI]: 9.1, 11.7) with hearing impairment, 2.8 years (95% CI: 2.4, 3.2) with vision impairment, and 2.2 years (95% CI: 1.8, 2.6) with dual sensory impairment. Women aged 65 had a total life expectancy of 23.2 years, and were estimated to live for 12.9 years (95% CI: 11.9, 13.9) with hearing impairment, 3.9 years (95% CI: 3.4, 4.4) with vision impairment, and 3.2 years (95% CI: 2.7, 3.7) with dual sensory impairment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In addition to being highly prevalent, hearing and vision impairment affect older adults for substantial periods of their remaining life. Given their broad ranging impacts on health and well-being, sensory impairments are ideal targets for strategies to compress morbidity in late life.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Ageing, Health and Wellbeing, Research School of Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra. kim.kiely@anu.edu.au.
authors.forename: Kim M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Kiely
authors.affiliation: Centre for Vision Research, Westmead Millennium Institute, The University of Sydney, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.affiliation: Centre for Vision Research, Westmead Millennium Institute, The University of Sydney, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Bamini
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gopinath
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Flinders Centre for Ageing Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.
authors.forename: Mary A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Luszcz
authors.affiliation: Institute of Health & Society and Newcastle University Institute for Ageing, Newcastle University, UK.
authors.forename: Carol
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jagger
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Ageing, Health and Wellbeing, Research School of Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra.
authors.forename: Kaarin J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Anstey
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001315:Australia; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008390:Markov Chains; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D013997:Time Factors; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014792:Visual Acuity
keywords: Healthy life expectancies; Hearing impairment; The Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing; The Blue Mountains Eye Study; Vision impairment