Researchers in Tokyo, Japan conducted a study "To examine the association between hearing handicap and depressive symptoms in older community-dwelling Japanese. Community-based cohort study. Kurabuchi Town, Gunma Prefecture, Japan."

"Five hundred eighty residents (261 men, 319 women) aged 65 and older without depressive symptoms. In a baseline examination performed in 2005/06, participants answered the 10-item screening version of the Hearing Handicap Inventory for Elderly (HHIE-S). They were divided into two groups according to their scores: a group with no hearing handicap (HHIE-S scores of < 8) and a hearing handicap group (HHIE-S scores of >= 10). The Geriatric Depression Scale was used to identify depressive symptoms in face-to-face home visit interviews conducted in 2008, and the association between hearing handicap and depressive symptoms was assessed using logistic regression. The incidence of depressive symptoms was 19.6% in the group with a hearing handicap and 8.0% in the group without a hearing handicap. When compared with the subjects without hearing handicap, subjects with a hearing handicap had a multiadjusted odds ratio of depressive symptoms of 2.45 (95% confidence interval=1.26-4.77). The association remained significant even when hearing impairment measured with pure-tone audiometry was added to the multiadjusted model," wrote H. Saito and colleagues, Keio University, Medical Department (see also Depression).

The researchers concluded: "A hearing handicap can predict future depressive symptoms in older community-dwelling people."

Saito and colleagues published the results of their research in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (Hearing Handicap Predicts the Development of Depressive Symptoms After 3 Years in Older Community-Dwelling Japanese. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2010;58(1):93-97).

For additional information, contact Y. Nishiwaki, Keio University, Sch Medical, Dept. of Prevent Med & Public Hlth, Shinjuku Ku, 35 Shinanomachi, Tokyo 1608582, Japan.

The publisher of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society can be contacted at: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc., Commerce Place, 350 Main St., Malden 02148, MA, USA.