Efficacy of Auditory Training and Combined Auditory-working-memory Training in Improving Communication in Older Adults

Summary

Using a randomized controlled trial, we are going to examine whether a training program that incorporates both auditory training and working memory training (AT-WMT) would generate significantly better results in communication and cognition than an auditory training program and a mindfulness training program (active-control). Participants are 120 older adults (40 per group) with untreated mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing impairment .

Conditions

• Hearing Loss

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Auditory-working memory training program

The AT-WMT program is comprised of 1,200 daily used sentences either created or selected from newspapers, books, TV programs and magazines by the research assistants. The sentences are political-, cultural-, and religious-neutral sentences. Each of them contains 10 words. Noise was recorded from the upper and lower decks of a bus, in a café, a Chinese restaurant, an MTR (the Mass Transit Railway) carriage, and from a street. During the training, the following two adaptive tasks will be administered simultaneously: repeating the sentences masked by noise (i.e., AT component) and recalling the first or the final two words of all sentences in a given sentence set (i.e., WMT component).

BEHAVIORAL

Auditory training program

During the training, an adaptive speech-in-noise perception task will be administered. Specifically, the sentences in a sentence set will be presented binaurally using a headphone at a level the listeners felt is comfortable. The trainees are expected to immediately repeat each noise-masked sentence after hearing it. If they cannot repeat the sentence, then the sound intensity of the noise will be automatically decreased (step size = 2 dB) until the sentence can be correctly repeated. If the sentence can be repeated at the first attempt, then the intensity of the noise will be automatically increased by 2 dB in the next sentence. To provide feedback, the targeted sentence will be replaced by an asterisk and only shown after clicking the sentence.

BEHAVIORAL

Mindfulness training program

Participants in this group will participate in a mindfulness training program using newlife.330 (Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, 2018) which is a Cantonese online platform for self-guided mindfulness training.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Education University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Chen Yuan, PhD · The Education University of Hong Kong

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

QUADRUPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

55 Years

Max Age

80 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-06-30

Primary Completion

2026-06-30

Completion

2026-12-31