Hearing aid fitting trial for patients with Alzheimer's disease during their stay in the hospital.

Abstract

　For this study, we analyzed the data of nine Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients who underwent a hearing aid fitting trial during their stay at the hospital. Five of them met the criteria for hearing aid fitting and evaluation, and succeeded in continuing to wear a hearing aid even after they left the hospital. The rest failed to meet the requirements and could not continue using a hearing aid after discharge from the hospital. There were no significant differences in the age, average hearing level, duration of hearing aid trial, ability to carry out activities of daily living (Barthel Index), dementia mental scale, duration of AD, awareness of hearing impairment, or results of the speech discrimination test between the two groups. However, significant differences in improvement of communication as evaluated by others and as assessed by self-evaluation by the clients themselves were found between the two groups, which suggested that these two factors might be useful as markers of the possible outcome of hearing aid fitting in AD patients.