RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Prevalence of hearing impairment in the elderly living at home
JF The Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
JO J R Coll Gen Pract
FD British Journal of General Practice
SP 155
OP 160
VO 31
IS 224
A1 Herbst, Katia Gilhome
A1 Humphrey, Charlotte
YR 1981
UL http://bjgp.org/content/31/224/155.abstract
AB Using pure tone audiometry, we assessed the prevalence of hearing impairment in a sample of elderly people living at home and aged 70 or more. Deafness was defined as an average loss over the speech frequencies at 1 kHz, 2 kHz and 4 kHz of 35 db or more in the better ear. We found that 60 per cent of the sample were deaf. This figure is substantially higher than previous estimates arrived at without the use of audiometry. We discuss some possible reasons for this discrepancy and consider the implications of this level of prevalence of hearing impairment for the health care of the elderly.