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Highlighting and Reducing the Impact of Negative Aging Stereotypes During Older Adults' Cognitive Testing
Published on: January 24, 2020
Disregarding hearing loss leads to overestimation of age-related cognitive decline
Maria J S Guerreiro1, Pascal W M Van Gerven2
1Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands; Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, Institute for Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
Abstract:
Aging is associated with cognitive and sensory decline. While several studies have indicated greater cognitive decline among older adults with hearing loss, the extent to which age-related differences in cognitive processing may have been overestimated due to group differences in sensory processing has remained unclear. We addressed this question by comparing younger adults, older adults with good hearing, and older adults with poor hearing in several cognitive domains: working memory, selective attention, processing speed, inhibitory control, and abstract reasoning. Furthermore, we examined whether sensory-related cognitive decline depends on cognitive demands and on the sensory modality used for assessment. Our results revealed that age-related cognitive deficits in most cognitive domains varied as a function of hearing loss, being more pronounced in older adults with poor hearing. Furthermore, sensory-related cognitive decline was observed across different levels of cognitive demands and independent of the sensory modality used for cognitive assessment, suggesting a generalized effect of age-related hearing loss on cognitive functioning. As most cognitive aging studies have not taken sensory acuity into account, age-related cognitive decline may have been overestimated.
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