Abstract
Age-related auditory disorder is a complex disorder characterized by a decline in peripheral and central auditory and cognitive functions. Hearing thresholds, which begin to be elevated from higher frequencies, vary significantly among the subjects and the speed of the threshold elevation increases with age. Speech perception is affected in subjects with presbycusis, due mainly to their hearing loss, but is more severely so in patients of advanced age. Otoacoustic emissions and auditory brainstem responses are also impaired, mainly reflecting the subjects' hearing threshold elevations, and less significantly, their age. Auditory temporal processing, which can be evaluated by psychoacoustic tests such as the gap detection test, is also deteriorated in elderly subjects. For elderly subjects with difficulty in speech communication in daily life, hearing aid (HA) is the treatment of choice. When HAs no longer provide benefit, cochlear implantation is the treatment of choice; excellent results of cochlear implantation have been demonstrated even in elderly subjects, although those who are older at implantation tend to show lower speech understanding scores postoperatively. It is considered important to avoid unnecessary exposure to loud noises and to prevent/treat atherosclerosis in order to prevent age-related auditory disorder. Auditory-based cognitive training may be useful to restore age-related deficits in temporal processing.
