Identifying mechanisms between hearing loss and falls

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ABSTRACT Falls result in substantial morbidity, mortality, and disability among older adults. Recently, hearing loss and hearing handicap have been identified as independent risk factors for falls. It is unclear the factors that mediate the association between hearing loss and falls. The long-term goal is to to develop novel interventions that will modify falls risk in the hearing impaired patient population. The current objective is to identify and understand the auditory and vestibular related factors that explain the association between falls and hearing loss and to characterize performance on these candidate factors. To that end, our proposal aims to examine the vestibular- related factors, centrally mediated auditory factors (spatial hearing and listening effort), cognitive, and psychosocial factors in an older adult patient population of fallers and non-fallers. The current proposal is innovative as the work will characterize the extent to which key theoretical factors explain the link between falls and hearing loss and specifically the extent to which unrecognized vestibular dysfunction may explain the association. These contributions will be significant, as they will inform strategies to implement targeted rehabilitation programs to reduce falls and falls-risk in this patient population.