Decreased Facial Emotion Recognition in Elderly Patients With Hearing Loss Reflects Diminished Social Cognition

Saatci Ö., Geden H., Güneş Çiftçi H., Çiftçi Z., ARICI DÜZ Ö., Yulug B.

Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology, cilt.131, sa.6, ss.671-677, 2022 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 131 Sayı: 6
  • Basım Tarihi: 2022
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1177/00034894211040057
  • Dergi Adı: Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, BIOSIS, CAB Abstracts, CINAHL, EMBASE, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MEDLINE, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Veterinary Science Database
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.671-677
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: facial expressions, age-related hearing loss, facial emotion test, social cognition
  • İstanbul Medipol Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Objective: The main objective of this research was to evaluate the correlation between the severity of hearing loss and the facial emotional recognition as a critical part of social cognition in elderly patients. Methods: The prospective study was comprised of 85 individuals. The participants were divided into 3 groups. The first group consisted of 30 subjects older than 65 years with a bilateral pure-tone average mean >30 dB HL. The second group consisted of 30 subjects older than 65 years with a PTA mean ≤30 dB HL. The third group consisted of 25 healthy subjects with ages ranging between 18 and 45 years and a PTA mean ≤25 dB HL. A Facial Emotion Identification Test and a Facial Emotion Discrimination Test were administered to all groups. Results: Elderly subjects with hearing loss performed significantly worse than the other 2 groups on the facial emotion identification and discrimination tests (P <.05). Appealingly, they identified a positive emotion, “happiness,” more accurately in comparison to the other negative emotions. Conclusions: Our results suggest that increased age might be associated with decreased facial emotion identification and discrimination scores, which could be deteriorated in the presence of significant hearing loss.