Cohort Review Paper

Americans are living longer lives than ever before and along with this aging population comes regression in hearing. A deficit in hearing is a frustration that many older adults are effected by, and can manifest as a barrier in their lives by negatively affecting quality of life and social participation in the community. Hearing aids are crucial in assisting the growing elderly population to have an increased quality of life and social participation. Manrique-Huarte, Calavia, Irujo, Giron, and Manrique-Rodriguez (2015) conducted a retrospective cohort study, which is a level three study evaluating the use of both cochlear implants (CI) and hearing aids (HA) to compare their effects on the participants’ auditory function, depression, anxiety, and quality of life. In the study, there were 117 participants separated into four subgroups consisting of: untreated moderate-severe sensorineural hearing loss (MS-SNHL), untreated profound sensorineural hearing loss (P-SNHL), and two
(2007), a systematic review, which is level one evidence, was conducted to assess the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of individuals with sensorineural hearing loss who wear hearing aids. In this review, sixteen studies were evaluated which included randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, correlational studies, and pre-test post-test studies of individuals between the ages of fifty-four and seventy-four who were primarily male with mild to profound hearing loss. Through analyzing the data using an effect size (ES) to express the magnitude of the results, it was found that hearing aids have a medium to large effect on HRQoL (2.07 with 95% CI: 0.51, 3.63) when the outcomes are measured using disease-specific instruments. This study’s conclusions help support the idea that adults with sensorineural hearing loss who use hearing aids have an improved HRQoL by helping reduce the social, psychological, and emotional effects of their hearing