It’s not uncommon to think that a person’s hearing is going once they start asking others to repeat themselves. Hearing loss is a common condition that often affects the elderly; however, a new study suggests that this may not be the case. In fact, a decline in a person’s speech-processing abilities in the brain could be the cause.
Researchers at the University of Maryland have discovered that sometimes there is something else going on in the brain of an aging adult. Even if a clinical assessment of their hearing is determined to be normal. This new study was recently published in the Journal of Neurophysiology and was conducted by researchers Alessandro Presacco, Samira Anderson, and Jonathan Z. Simon. What these researchers discovered was that adults between the ages of 61 and 73, who were determined to have normal hearing, scored significantly worse on speech understanding when they were in noisy environments than adults between the ages of 18 and 30 who have normal hearing.
Researchers were able to calculate participants’ ability to understand speech in both settings that were quiet and in noisy environments where more than one person was talking. Also, participants underwent two brain scans to measure the electrical activity present in the cortex and midbrain. What the results showed was that older adults have a harder time tracking a person’s speech in both quiet and noisy environments. It was also discovered that adults also require more time to process acoustic cues, and scored lower on the speech-in-noise comprehension test. Neural deficits in the cortex and midbrain were also reported and were found to be a result of aging.
What these findings show is that the aging brain’s inability to properly understand certain sound signals in different environments. This discovery could be a contributing factor on why aging adults have an inability to hear at certain volumes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Research indicates that the decline in speech-processing abilities in the brain, rather than just the ears, can cause hearing difficulties in older adults. This means that even if an older person has normal hearing as per clinical tests, they might struggle to understand speech, especially in noisy environments due to changes in brain function.
Aging impacts the brain's cortex and midbrain, leading to neural deficits that reduce the ability to track and interpret speech signals. Older adults take longer to process acoustic cues and have decreased speech-in-noise comprehension, making it harder to understand speech when multiple people are talking or in noisy settings.
Yes, studies have shown that older adults with clinically normal hearing can still perform worse in speech comprehension tests, particularly in noisy environments. This suggests that hearing assessments focusing solely on the ear might overlook brain-related processing issues affecting speech understanding.
Researchers conducted speech-understanding tests in both quiet and noisy environments and performed brain scans measuring electrical activity in the cortex and midbrain. These methods helped reveal the neural processing deficits contributing to speech comprehension difficulties in older adults.
Older adults may require louder volumes because their brains process acoustic cues more slowly and less efficiently due to aging-related neural changes. This delayed and weakened processing makes it harder for them to understand speech at normal volumes, particularly in noisy settings.
The study compared adults between 61 and 73 years of age with a younger group aged 18 to 30. Both groups had clinically normal hearing, but the older adults scored significantly worse on speech understanding, especially in noisy environments.