Hearing behavior: study in an aged people group. / COMPORTAMENTO AUDITIVO: estudo em um grupo de idosos.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

Purpose: To characterize aged peoples hearing behavior in different age groups. Methods: 200 people from 60 to 100 year old participated in this study. All individuals have been submitted to audiological evaluation comprising anamnesis, liminal tonal audiometry (ATL), logoaudimetry and high frequency audiometry (AAF) and imitanciomatry. Results: Hearing loss complaint by a significant majority of the sample (44%). We noted a decrease in audibility threshold as the age increases, both in ATL and AAF. As to sex, in ATL men presented an enhanced hearing loss in high frequencies regarding women. We did not observe any statistically significant difference among sexes for tonal thresholds in bass frequencies, although thresholds in female sex have been slightly better than those of male sex. In AAF, we noted a statistically significant difference among sexes only in 8 kHz frequency, in which women presented thresholds significantly better than men. We did not observe any statistic difference among thresholds of individuals exposed and non-exposed to high level of noises. Individuals with complaints presented worse audibility thresholds both in ATL and AAF, and worse in IPRF performance than individuals with no complaint. Conclusions: The most referred complaint among aged people is the hearing loss, followed by difficulty of communication in a noisy environment. There is an enhanced hearing loss in conventional ATL high frequencies for male sex regarding female sex, which occurs only in 8 kHz frequency in AAF. IPRF Performance for the population studied is similar to both sexes. Individuals with and without exposition to high levels of noise do not show a different performance in the tests applied. Individuals with hearing complaint show a worse performance than those without complaint, which occurs in all tests.

ASSUNTO(S)

1. envelhecimento 2. idoso 3. audiometria 4. testes auditivos 5. perda auditiva fonoaudiologia

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