Influence of Hearing Aid Fitting on the Cognitive Profile of Older Adults: A Pre–Post Intervention Study

Sulamita Cysneiros das Chagas Santos, Kelly da Silva*, Nathalia Monteiro Santos, Jeferson Sampaio d’Ávila, Raphaela Barroso Guedes Granzortti and Ricardo Queiroz Gurgel

Introduction: In addition to compromising sound perception, presbycusis can affect cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and language, justifying investigations into the relationship among hearing, cognition, and the use of hearing aids. 

Purpose: To examine the influence of hearing aid use on performance in the Mini-Mental State Examination, Semantic Verbal Fluency, attention, and working memory. 

Methodology: This prospective observational pre–post study included 60 older adults (≥60 years) with bilateral hearing loss and no prior use of hearing aids. Individuals with cognitive impairment, neurological diseases, or severe/profound hearing loss without linguistic code were excluded. Sociodemographic and audiological data were collected, and cognitive tests were applied before and after the intervention. Analyses employed descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing. 

Results: The mean age was 70.1 ± 7.9 years, with a predominance of moderate sensorineural hearing loss (≈48%). After hearing aid fitting, there was a significant improvement in MMSE scores (from 20.73 ± 3.80 to 22.62 ± 3.27; p < 0.001), as well as in working memory, language, verbal fluency, and task execution time. Older adults with mild hearing loss showed better cognitive performance compared to those with moderate loss. 

Conclusion: Hearing aid use in older adults was associated with improved performance in global cognition and in domains related to attention, working memory, language, and semantic verbal fluency after six months of follow-up.

Keywords:

Published on: May 15, 2026 Pages: 1-10

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/aggr.000041
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