In the March edition of The Journal of the American Academy of Audiology (JAAA), researchers from the University of Wisconsin at Madison show that tinnitus clearly reduces the quality of life of older adults.  Additionally, the most significant negative effects of tinnitus showed up in the domains of physical pain and stress, as opposed to the mental and emotional domains.

In the population-based study, lead-researcher David Nondahl and colleagues looked at self-reported data using the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) from 2800 subjects who were age 53 to 97, with 669 subjects having mild, moderate, or severe levels of tinnitus.

When looking at the SF-36 data, mean scores for all eight domains (physical functioning, role-physical, bodily pain, general hearing perceptions, vitality, social functioning, role-emotional, and mental health index) worsened with the severity of the subjects’ tinnitus, as did mean scores for the two summary indexes (Physical and Mental Component Summary). A significant (p < .05) linear trend was observed for the role-physical, bodily pain, vitality, and Physical Component Summary index.

Almost 25% of the population had tinnitus, with 9.4% reporting moderate to severe tinnitus. The researchers concluded that “quality of life is diminished in participants with tinnitus, and the effect increases with severity. With improvements in longevity, the number of older adults affected by tinnitus is expected to increase, suggesting that additional efforts to identify effective prevention, diagnosis, and treatment are warranted to increase the quality of life experienced by older adults.”

JAAA Editor-in-Chief James Jerger, PhD, states in his editorial that the study “provides a wealth of data confirming the link between tinnitus and diminished quality of life, an important contribution to the theoretical framework underlying tinnitus intervention therapy.”

The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Original Paper
Nondahl D, Cruickshanks KJ, Dalton DS, Klein BEK, Klein R, Schubert CR, Tweed TS, Wiley TL. The impact of tinnitus on quality of life in older adults. JAAA. 18(3):257-266.

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