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
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.