Posted:
Older adults in Romania with moderate to severe sensorineural hearing loss showed meaningful benefits from hearing aid adoption compared with peers who declined amplification. Researchers enrolled 201 adults aged about 50 to 92 and compared those who chose hearing aids to those who did not. Participants completed standard hearing tests and questionnaires that measure perceived hearing difficulty, hearing-related quality of life, tinnitus impact, and self-esteem.
Users of hearing aids had much better speech recognition scores across degrees of hearing loss. They also reported lower perceived hearing issues and higher self-esteem than non-users. There were no substantial differences in age or sex between the groups. Tinnitus severity did not differ. The findings suggest that wearing hearing aids improves both objective speech understanding and psychosocial aspects of living with hearing loss.
Read the study here.
