Working Memory Changes With Aging and Hearing Loss

Completed

Conditions studied: Aging, Hearing Loss

In brief

Hearing loss is one of the most common health concerns affecting 1 in 3 Americans over 60 years of age rising to 1 in 2 for those over 85 years old. Contributions to hearing abilities provided by cognitive and memory processes are universally recognized as essential to adequate speech communication, but these processes are not well understood. Cognitive limitations in the ability to rapidly process sequential sounds occur with all listeners but may have more impact on older Veterans with and without hearing impairment. The purpose of this study is to examine and more thoroughly characterize the change in auditory working memory with hearing loss and increasing age. Young and older listeners with and without hearing loss will listen and report on two target sounds embedded in a stream of rapidly occurring sound. The investigators expect that older listeners without hearing loss will have more difficulty than young listeners but that older listeners with hearing impairment will have the most difficulty with this task even when the sounds they are listening to are adjusted to compensate for their hearing loss.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT01253031

Run by

VA Office of Research and Development

People needed

63

Starts

2011-03-01

Expected to finish

2012-12-01

Last updated by the study team

2015-12-23

Who can join

Age: 18 and older, up to 75. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• 18-30 years of age or 60-75 years of age
• Normal hearing or
• Mild to moderate hearing loss
• No major medical or memory problems

You may not qualify if…

• <24/30 on MMSE
• Conductive or mixed hearing loss.
• Hearing loss worse than 55dB in either ear.
• Taking medication known to alter concentration or alertness
• Inability to learn task after practice
• Major medical or psychological disorder

Where it is running

• VA Portland Health Care System, Portland, OR — Portland, Oregon, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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