Reabilitação auditiva de idosos em um programa de atenção à saúde auditiva

Abstract

The difficulties observed in the elderly about the speech recognition in the presence of competitive stimuli and to perform the use, handling and care of hearing aids, provided the motivation for conducting this study, which aimed to evaluate the effects of an auditory rehabilitation program in speech recognition abilities in quiet and in noise, and temporal ordering of duration and frequency patterns of sounds, and address some practical issues to consider in the process of hearing aids fitting in elderly. The study group comprised 17 elderly new users of hearing aids purchased through the National Health System, between the ages of 60 and 84 years of age, divided in the Control Group that only made use of hearing aids, and Study Group, submitted to an auditory rehabilitation program, structured in seven sessions, which included auditory counseling and training. All subjects underwent two separate stages of evaluation, initial and final study, which totaled seven weeks between assessments. In the article were considered the results for speech recognition in quiet and noise through the test Lists of Sentences in Portuguese, and discusses practical issues to be considered in the process of hearing aids fitting in elderly, and Article II, the results obtained for the temporal ordering ability of the sounds, through the Duration Pattern Sequence and Pitch Pattern Sequence tests. It was concluded that subjects of both groups did not show satisfactory improvement in speech recognition, either in silence or in noise. However, the subjects underwent auditory rehabilitation program showed statistically significant improvement to achieve the recognition, temporal ordering and naming of duration and frequency patterns of sounds, and showed greater independence and security as the skills practices considered in this study, and showed statistically significant improvement to achieve the recognition, temporal ordering and naming of duration and frequency patterns of sounds, about the elderly who only made use of hearing aids during the same period.