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Evaluating the Effectiveness of Dichotic Training in the Elderly Adults: A Single Subject Study Publisher



Shahidipour Z1 ; Farahani S1 ; Mohammadkhani G1 ; Tavanai E1 ; Rahbar N2 ; Jalaie S3
Authors
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Authors Affiliations
  1. 1. Department of Audiology, School of Rehabilitation, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  2. 2. Department of Audiology, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  3. 3. School of Rehabilitation, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Source: Auditory and Vestibular Research Published:2021


Abstract

Background and Aim: Elderly people usually show poor performance in dichotic listening tasks. In this condition, the left ear being often the weaker one shows a performance below the normal limits. Studies have shown the effective-ness of dichotic listening training in auditory and language processing for adults and children with neurological disorders. This study aimed to deve-lop a home-version of dichotic training and inve-stigate its effectiveness in elderly adults. Methods: Participants in this single-subject interventional study (AB design) were four elde-rly subjects (two males and two females) aged 65−75 years. The main inclusion criteria were dichotic listening deficit demonstrated by the dichotic digit test (DDT), no neurological or cog-nitive disorders, and normal hearing threshold. Dichotic listening training was performed with an informal home-version of dichotic interaural intensity difference (DIID) training program for seven weeks. DDT was performed seven conse-cutive weeks before (phase A) and after the inter-vention (phase B) at the end of each week. Results: Data were analyzed by single-subject study statistics. Findings demonstrated an imp-rovement in DDT scores for the left ear and dec-rease in right ear advantage scores in all the eld-erly adults after DIID training program. It seems that this training program could remediate poor performance in dichotic listening tasks in elderly people. Conclusion: The advantage of this method is that it can be easily done at home and is cost-effective. However, further studies are needed to approve the neuroplasticity and structural chan-ges in the brain after the DIID training program in this population. © 2021 Tehran University of Medical Sciences.