The relationship between subjective hearing impairment and mild behavioral impairment – A study of older adults without dementia in the COMPASS‐ND Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Hearing loss and mild behavioral impairment (MBI) are both early warning signs of cognitive decline and dementia in older adults and have been recommended for use as non‐cognitive markers of dementia. To date, few studies have directly investigated the relationship between these two markers. Method Baseline data from 219 non‐demented participants (10 cognitively normal; CN, 48 subjective cognitive decline; SCD, 161 mild cognitive impairment; MCI) in the COMPASS‐ND study (February 2020 release) were analyzed. Hearing impairment was measured in three ways: with a 10‐item self‐report measure using the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly – Screening Version (HHIE‐S), with a speech and noise test using the Canadian Digit Triplet Test (CDTT), and with screening audiometry using 2 discrete input levels at 2000 Hz to generate 6 hearing loss categories. Global and domain‐specific MBI burden was approximated using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI‐Q) with a published algorithm. Multivariable linear regressions were conducted to examine the association between the three hearing impairment measures and global MBI burden, adjusting for sex, age, education, hearing aid use, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score or diagnosis. Multivariable logistic regressions were used to investigate whether the hearing variables could predict MBI domains. Result Half of all participants showed MBI symptoms (Figure 1). Greater self‐reported hearing impairment measured by the HHIE‐S was significantly associated with greater global MBI burden and the presence of apathy and affective dysregulation when controlling for global cognition or diagnosis (Table 1). These associations remained significant in analyses restricted to MCI alone. Performance on CDTT and screening audiometry, were not associated with global or domain‐specific MBI burden. Conclusion The HHIE‐S, which was designed to capture the emotional and social aspects of hearing loss, was positively related to global MBI burden and more specifically to apathy and affect. Unlike audiometry and speech and noise measures, self‐reported measures of hearing impairment can be influenced by age, sex, other comorbidities, and social factors. Our findings underscore that value of self‐report measures of hearing impairment as distinct from audiometry and speech and noise measures in their association with behavioral impairment and as non‐cognitive markers of dementia.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".