COCHLEAR IMPLANT IN THE ELDERLY: HEARING PERFORMANCE IN SILENCE AND NOISE, COGNITION & QUALITY OF LIFE
Cochlear Implant, Elderly, Quality of Life, Cognition, Speech Perception, Listening Effort._
Introduction: Hearing loss has several consequences in older adults life's, affecting the quality of life, social participation, and cognition. Cochlear implants in this population improves speech comprehension, and cognition, and can be bilaterally, unilaterally, or bimodal. Objective: evaluate the outcomes of older adults CI users concerning speech perception, listening effort, quality of life, and cognitive screening. Our aim is to verify which factors significantly impact the quality of life of this population. Methods: Assessment of speech comprehension in silence and noise with HINT, cognitive screening with ACE-R, and quality of life with WHOQOL-OLD Results: There was no significant difference between comprehension scores in different CI adaptations in silence and noise. HINT silence had a negative correlation with age (ρ -0,6094; p-value <0,05), HINT fixed noise had a positive correlation with social participation (ρ=0,4481, p-value < 0.05). Lower subjective auditory effort in speech comprehension in noise was correlated with higher quality-of-life scores (ρ -0,4372, p-value <0,05). 27,27% of subjects were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, but cognition did not have a correlation with quality of life (p-value > 0.05). Conclusion: Speech perception in noise and subjective listening effort are important factors in evaluating the quality of life of elders with CI.