title: Hearing loss and cognition in the Busselton Baby Boomer cohort: An epidemiological study.
abstract: To determine the relationship between peripheral hearing loss (HL) in baby boomers (better-ear measure) and cognitive function, taking into account the impact of depression or cognitive reserve on this relationship and exploring binaural hearing.
  
  
  
  A prospective, epidemiology study.
  
  
  
  Data from 1,969 participants aged 45 to 66 years were collected in the Busselton Healthy Ageing Study. Participants were assessed using pure-tone air-conduction thresholds at octave frequencies (250; 500; 1,000; 2,000; 4,000; and 8,000 Hz). Hearing loss was grouped using 1) pure-tone averages across 4 frequencies (500 to 4000Hz) in the better ear (BE4FA) or 2) latent profile analysis (LPA) using all thresholds from both ears. Cognition was tested with the Cognitive Drug Research System, verbal fluency, and National Adult Reading Test (premorbid-IQ). Regression was used to determine the impact of HL relative to no HL on age and education-adjusted cognition, controlling for mood, sex, and premorbid-IQ.
  
  
  
  According to BE4FA, 4.7% had mild (26-40 dB) HL; 0.8% had moderate (41-60 dB) HL; and 0.3% had severe (61-80 dB) HL. Based on the LPA, 20.5% had high-frequency HL; 7.8% had mid- to high-frequency HL; and 1.9% had significant HL across all frequencies. The HL group was not a predictor of cognitive performance in any domain using BE4FA and explained just 0.5% and 0.4% of variance in continuity-of-attention and speed-of-memory retrieval using LPA. Critically, those with the worst hearing did not differ cognitively from those with the best.
  
  
  
  Hearing loss is not an important determinant of contemporaneous attention, memory, or executive function in middle-aged adults once age, education, depression, cognitive reserve, and sex are controlled.
  
  
  
  4. Laryngoscope, 126:2367-2375, 2016.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. romola.bucks@uwa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Romola S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Bucks
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.
authors.forename: Patrick D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Dunlop
authors.affiliation: Ear Sciences Centre, School of Surgery, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.|Audiology Department, Princess Margaret Hospital, Subiaco, Australia.|Ear Science Institute Australia, Subiaco, Australia.
authors.forename: Dunay Schmulian
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Taljaard
authors.affiliation: Ear Sciences Centre, School of Surgery, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.|Ear Science Institute Australia, Subiaco, Australia.
authors.forename: Christopher G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Brennan-Jones
authors.affiliation: Busselton Population Medical Research Institute, Busselton, Australia.|School of Population Health, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Australia.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hunter
authors.affiliation: Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia.|Wesnes Cognition Ltd., Streatley on Thames, United Kingdom.|Department of Psychology, University of Northumbria, Newcastle, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wesnes
authors.affiliation: Ear Sciences Centre, School of Surgery, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.|Ear Science Institute Australia, Subiaco, Australia.|Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
authors.forename: Robert H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Eikelboom
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D058245:Cognitive Reserve; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012044:Regression Analysis
keywords: Hearing impairment; aging; cognition; epidemiology