The third most common chronic health condition present in the geriatric population is hearing loss, eclipsed by arthritis and hypertension.2 It is estimated that approximately 25% …show more content…
Phase 2 indicated that 93.3% of participants showed a noteworthy decline in overall depressive symptoms and a decline of 46.1%, resulting to only 15.4% indicating or presenting depression symptoms.13 Furthermore, in an assessment conducted by the University of Geneva’s Department of Internal Medicine, the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) was used to measure depressive symptoms present in elderly patients before and after hearing aid were prescribed over a 6 month period to observe the long term effects.7 After a one month interval a decrease in CESD scores was observed and was sustained throughout the six month study interval of the study. It has been shown that the hearing impaired have a higher indication of depressive symptoms than those that do not present with hearing impairment. Intervention and management though the use of hearing aids has been shown to decrease depressive symptoms in the geriatric …show more content…
Throughout the longitudinal study, it was found that the group without hearing aids had an increased rate of decline in MMSE score than those in the control group.14 Comparing the control group and the hearing aid group showed that no significant change in the rate of conative decline, but had comparable rate of decline. Lin found the risk of cognitive impairment and increased possibility for decline of cognition was linearly correlated to the individual’s severity of hearing loss at baseline.16 In another large-scale study, reviewed by Utah State University, Duke University and Johns Hopkins University, these findings were confirmed and their analysis suggested that hearing loss may be a indicator for cognitive