The Associations between Hearing, Cognition, and Mobility among Healthy Older Adults with Normal Cognition and Mobility

Aging is often associated with declines in sensory (e.g., hearing), cognitive, and motor functioning. These functions jointly influence one’s ability to engage successfully in everyday activities (i.e., communication) and avoid injury (i.e., falls-related injuries). Previous studies have typically assessed these abilities independently of each other (rather than holistically), focused on impairments (rather than healthy older adults) and used objective assessments (rather than subjective assessments). This study aimed to fill these gaps by examining the hearing-cognition-mobility link with healthy older adult participants ranging in hearing abilities. Retrospective analyses were conducted on an existing dataset collected within our laboratory at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, which included an in-person objective-measures session (n= 122) and an online subjective-measures session (n= 41) measuring hearing, cognition and mobility. We conducted bivariate correlations and found that better objective hearing was associated with better objective cognition, better subjective hearing was associated with better subjective cognition and better subjective mobility, and poorer subjective cognition was associated with better objective mobility. Using a series of stepwise backward linear regressions, we found that better subjective hearing predicted both better subjective cognition and better subjective mobility. These findings may have implications for early screening and intervention strategies for adults experiencing subtle sensory-cognitive-motor declines.