Vision and hearing loss connected

9 October 2006

Vision and hearing loss are likely to occur hand-in-hand in older people, research suggests.

Scientists from the University of Sydney and the National Acoustics Laboratories, Sydney, examined about 2,000 people with an average age of 70.

They found the volunteers with restricted eyesight were more likely to suffer hearing impairments and vice-versa.

Writing in the journal Archives of Ophthalmology, the researchers said the underlying causes for these sensory impairments may be the same.

The researchers discovered that, for each line of the eye chart used by ophthalmologists that a volunteer could not see, there was an 18% (for the visually impaired) and 13% (for the best-corrected visually impaired) increase in the likelihood of hearing loss.

Conversely, those in the group that suffered hearing loss were 1.5 times more likely to have eyesight problems than those with good hearing.

Source: BBC News
(this link will open in a new window)

Deafness Research UK cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in external websites.