Association between hearing and frailty in older individuals in a hearing aid outpatient clinic and in a population-based study

Abstract

　　The increase in the number of elderly people requiring long-term care in this rapidly aging society has become one of the important issues in medical care. Measures against frailty, which is a stage prior to the stage of needing nursing care, are becoming more and more important. Frailty is a concept that encompasses not only physical frailty, but also psychological, cognitive, and social frailty, and is characterized by its multidimensionality and reversibility.

　　There are several criteria used to assess frailty; the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) criteria proposed by Fried et al. are widely used internationally, while the Kihon Check List (KCL) published by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of the country is used in Japan. Herein, we report the results of a study of frailty conducted based on different indicators of frailty used in the longitudinal study of aging (NILS-LSA) and at the hearing aid outpatient clinic at the National Institute for Longevity Sciences, and propose the possibility that hearing care professionals could contribute to early detection of the care reserve group in the population.