Auditory attentional abilities and presbycusis

Abstract

The increase of life expectancy arouses questions on the links between sensory aging and modification of age-related cognitive capacities. More particularly, attention is a complex cognitive function which allows to handle, organize and acquire information impacting our behavior. Because attention is involved in most of our acts and daily activities, we wanted to validate an attentional abilities assessment, the LAMA (Software of attention in hearing modality), with presbycusis subjects without dementia. Sixteen average 69-year-old patients were tested for selective, steady and divided attention in hearing (sounds) and auditivo-verbal conditions (words). Furthermore, an evaluation of cognitive functions (MMSE), quality of life (ERSA) and verbal performances (Lafon, Fournier and MMBA sentences) were systematically proposed. The results of this study showed that presbycusis subjects were slower and less accurate than normal hearing subjects which suggests an effect of presbycousis on auditory attentional capacities.