Visual Impairment, Hearing Loss and Cognitive Function in an Older Population: Longitudinal Findings from the Blue Mountains Eye Study

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 11; no. 1; p. e0147646
• Main Authors: Hong, Thomas, Mitchell, Paul, Burlutsky, George, Liew, Gerald, Wang, Jie Jin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 25.01.2016; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Acuity; Age; Age Factors; Aged; Aging; Analysis; Biology and Life Sciences; Blindness; Cognition; Cognition - physiology; Cognitive ability; Cognitive disorders; Decibels; Dementia; Demographic aspects; Diabetic retinopathy; Ear; Elderly; Eye; Female; Hearing loss; Hearing Loss - epidemiology; Humans; Impairment; Male; Medicine and Health Sciences; Memory; Middle Aged; Mountains; Odds Ratio; Older people; People with disabilities; Physiological aspects; Population; Population studies; Prospective Studies; Psychiatry; Psychological aspects; Regression analysis; Regression models; Risk factors; Social Sciences; Stroke; Studies; Vision disorders; Vision Disorders - epidemiology; Visual acuity; Visual Acuity - physiology; Visual impairment; Australia; Blue Mountains; Sydney New South Wales Australia
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147646

The presence of visual impairment (VI) and hearing loss (HL) with may be a marker for subsequent cognitive decline over time in older people. A prospective, longitudinal population-based study of the 3654 participants of the Blue Mountains Eye Study were assessed for the associations between VI and HL and a decline in mini-mental state examination (MMSE) scores over a duration of 10 years from the 5-year (baseline of this report) to the 15-year follow-up visits. MMSE was assessed at the 5-, 10- and 15-year follow-up visits. A decline ≥3 scores from 5-year to 10- or 15-year visits indicated possible cognitive decline. VI was defined as best-corrected visual acuity <6/12 in the worse-eye, HL was defined as pure-tone average >40 decibels in the worse-ear and dual sensory impairment (DSI) was defined by the co-presence of VI and HL, detected at 5-year follow-up (baseline of this report). Participants with no VI and HL over the same 5- or 10-year corresponding period were controls. Associations of VI, HL and DSI with possible cognitive decline were assessed using logistic regression models adjusting for age and sex after excluding subjects with a stroke history. The presence of VI, HL or DSI was not associated with possible cognitive decline over 5 years (odds ratio (OR) 0.84, 95% confidence-intervals (CI) 0.40-1.79, OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.61-1.70 and 1.41, 95% CI 0.54-3.72, respectively) or 10 years (OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.52-2.30, OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.65-1.82 and 1.15, 95% CI 0.28-4.73, respectively). There were no changes to these findings after adjustment for other potential confounders. Age was significantly associated with possible cognitive decline (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.04-1.10 for both periods). Neither visual impairment, hearing loss nor dual sensory impairment was independently associated with subsequent decline in cognition.