PP602 - Working Memory and Its Influence on Hearing Performance in Elderly Cochlear Implant Users

Abstract:
Working memory is a cognitive ability that can change with aging and interfere with the auditory performance of elderly cochlear implant users without evidence of dementia and residents of a developing country.The sample underwent auditory, cognitive, and auditory self-perception tests.,

Summary:

Introduction:
The increase in the elderly population in the world has made hearing rehabilitation with cochlear implants more common, whose objective is to restore audibility and communication. In the communication process, it is necessary to extract the acoustic meanings of speech and store and integrate them into the ongoing auditory flow, an action related to working memory, considered one of the pillars of cognition.

Research shows that the cognitive process changes with aging, which justifies studying cognition in elderly cochlear implant users.

Purpose:
To verify the influence of working memory on the auditory performance of elderly cochlear implant users.

Method: This is a cross-sectional observational study in which 19 elderly people between 60 and 79 years old mean age of both genders (13 women), without symptoms of dementia, with mean CASI-S of 29,6±2,6 and different education levels (from 0 to 15 years: mean of 7.5±4.8) They undergoing to cochlear implant surgery in two services of the Brazilian Unified Health System in the city of São Paulo. The evaluation protocol for this research consisted of

(1) Hearing Assessment. It included pure tone audiometry speech audiometry and sentence Recognition in Noise Threshold. The test includes sentences in Portuguese to be recognized in the presence of competitive noise. The threshold was considered as the signal-to-noise ratio in which 50% of the played sentences were recognized.

(2) Cognitive Screening TestCASI-S - Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument – Short Form: Instrument used to screen for dementia.

(3)Cognitive Working Memory Tests: Digit and reverse and digit span test, Corsi block-tapping test, Visual Patterns Test (VPT), Running Span;
(4) Self-Assessment Questionnaire: Speech, Spatial and Qualities scale 49 with three subscales: Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing. Statistical analysis was carried out with Minitab (version 18) and SPSS applications and a significance level of 0.05 was considered.

Results:
There was no correlation between the working memory and temporal resolution test and the sentence recognition test in noise scores. A positive correlation was observed between the score of digit span and the SSQ -49 speech subscale items, and also with the SSQ-49 qualities of hearing scale score and global score. For each point on the digit test, there is approximately a 0.90 increase in the SSQ -49 subscale and overall scores. The better the performance on the digit test, the better the performance on the SSQ-49 tests. The reverse digit score is associated with the SSQ-49 speech subscale score. With a one-unit increase in the reverse digit score, the speech subscale score increases, on average, by 0.71 units. There was no correlation between the hearing tests and the variables length of implant use, sensory deprivation, and age at implantation.

Conclusion:
Better working memory is associated with better self-perceived auditory performance.