Fitness, Hearing and Quality of Life in Older Adults With Hearing Loss. Walk, Talk and Listen for Your Life (WTL)

University of British Columbia

Status: Completed

Conditions: Hearing Loss, Functional

Treatments: Other: Exercise + health education+ auditory rehabilitation; Other: auditory rehabilitation alone

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02662192

H15-02319

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study examines the effect of an exercise and health education/auditory rehabilitation and socialization intervention on functional fitness, hearing handicap and psychosocial distress measures in older adults with hearing loss.

Full description

Hearing loss is associated with functional fitness declines and increased risk for isolation, dementia, depression, falls, hospitalization and premature mortality. No studies have determined the effect of an exercise intervention on these measures in older adults with hearing loss.

After baseline assessment of function fitness and several psychosocial measures, 60 older adults with hearing loss will be randomized into a 10 week exercise, health education, socialization and auditory rehabilitation program or auditory rehabilitation alone. The exercise program consists of 3/4 of an hour strengthening and resistance training followed by 30 minutes of group walking. The educational session content is determined by participants and is interactive and may include such topics as wills and probate, diabetes treatment, healthy exercise etc. The 3/4 of an hour auditory rehabilitation sessions are modified from an online program and will include interactive sessions on education about hearing and hearing devices/technologies, psychosocial support and enhancing communication skills.

At the end of the 10 week intervention the assessments of functional fitness and psychosocial measures will be repeated. The group that was randomized to the auditory rehabilitation alone will then be offered the exercise program.

Enrollment: 66 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 65 to 90 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

-Gender: Male and female

Age limits:

• Minimum age: 65 years of age
• Maximum age: 90 years of age.
• Self-reported diagnosis of hearing loss
• Must be independently ambulatory (no use of cane, walker or wheelchair)
• Less than150 minutes per week of self-reported physical activity
• Healthy enough to participate in the intervention without exacerbating any existing symptomatology
• Not having participated in any organized exercise program for at least 6 months
• Availability and willingness to attend at least 80% of the 10 week intervention sessions in addition to baseline and final assessments. -Be English speaking and able to sign written informed consent
• A Hearing Handicap In the Elderly-25 questionnaire score of 25 > 17

Exclusion criteria

• Dementia
• Depression

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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66 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Exercise + health education + auditory rehabilitation 10 weeks of exercise, interactive health education, socialization and auditory rehabilitation program

Treatment:

Other: Exercise + health education+ auditory rehabilitation

Auditory rehabilitation alone

Active Comparator group

Description:

auditory rehabilitation alone 1 hour of group auditory rehabilitation once a week for 10 weeks

Treatment:

Other: auditory rehabilitation alone