While the population of individuals aged 65 and more in Turkey was 6 million 495 thousand 239 in 2015, this number has increased by 22.5% in the last five years and reached 7 million 953 thousand 555 people in 2020. The proportion of the elderly population in the total population, which was 8.2% in 2015, increased to 9.5% in 2020. According to the WHO, the proportion of the global population over the age of 60 will nearly double between 2015 and 2050.
Hearing loss is one of the issues that the elderly experience. Hearing loss is caused by pathologies in the outer, middle, and inner ear structures, auditory pathways, and auditory cortex. As people get older, the likelihood of developing chronic conditions rises, and the hearing system changes. These changes include enlargement of the outer auricle, atrophy of the ear canal, loss of elasticity, hardened earwax in the outer ear canal, increased hair growth, particularly in males; in the middle ear, the eardrum becomes harder, thinner, and less vascular, calcification in the articulation of the middle ear ossicles, and degeneration of the middle ear muscles. Presbycusis, characterized by hair cell disintegration, is common in the elderly population.
Presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss, is caused by physiological and pathological changes that occur with age. Age-related hearing loss is characterized by high-frequency hearing loss, which makes it difficult to hear consonants in words. Consonants give the majority of a word's meaning, and this grammatical loss contributes to complaints about age-related hearing loss. Hearing aids and cochlear implants significantly improve the lives of older people with hearing loss, particularly those suffering from depression or dementia. Recent research in gene therapy, pharmacology, and stem cells holds the prospect of restoring normal cochlear function.
In the presence of very mild hearing loss, there may not be a significant effect on the ability to understand speech in quiet environments. However, comprehension skills are greatly affected in noisy environments. In the case of very mild hearing loss, the capacity to interpret speech in quiet surroundings may be unaffected. In noisy surroundings, however, comprehension skills suffer dramatically. There is a significant decrease in speech intelligibility in both noisy and calm contexts when there is mild to moderate hearing loss, particularly when high frequencies are affected. Individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss may miss approximately 50-70% of what is said in noisy environments. Moderate hearing loss has trouble understanding most of what is spoken and speaks louder. With severe hearing loss, he has trouble hearing even high-intensity sounds in the environment without a hearing aid.
Turning up the volume of television and radio, having difficulty hearing speech, making people repeat what they say, exerting effort to listen, infection, pain, and ringing in the ear, and better hearing in one ear when talking on the phone are all negative effects of hearing loss that is reflected in daily life as people get older. Speech discrimination issues are becoming more common when hearing sensitivity declines with age, particularly in noisy surroundings.
Res. Asst. Çağla TÜRK
Res. Asst. Azize KÖSEOĞLU
