title: A Retrospective Examination of the Effect of Diabetes on Sensory Processing in Older Adults.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this article is to examine retrospectively the impact of diabetes mellitus on auditory, visual, and tactile processing in older adults.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fourteen (10.4%) of a sample of 135 older adults self-reported the presence of diabetes mellitus in a study of sensory and cognitive processing across the adult lifespan. In this study, the performance of the subgroup with diabetes on a number of psychophysical sensory-processing measures was compared with that of the 121 older adults without diabetes. Measures of sensory processing focused on temporal processing and threshold sensitivity in each of 3 sensory modalities: hearing, vision, and touch.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The subgroup of older adults with diabetes differed significantly (p < .05) from the larger group without diabetes only for measures of auditory temporal-order and temporal-masking identification tasks.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This retrospective study provides additional evidence in support of higher level auditory-processing deficits in older adults with a positive history of diabetes mellitus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington.
authors.forename: Larry E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Humes
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D055698:Touch Perception; D014796:Visual Perception