TOPLINE:
Difficulty distinguishing spoken words from background noise, called speech-in-noise hearing impairment, was associated with increased risk for Parkinson’s disease (PD), with a 57% elevation in risk per 10 dB increase in the speech reception threshold (SRT), a new study showed.
METHODOLOGY:
- In the preregistered prospective cohort study, investigators analyzed data for more than 159,000 UK Biobank participants who were free from PD at baseline. Median follow-up duration was 14.2 years.
- The analysis considered age, sex, and educational attainment as additional covariates.
- The Digit Triplet Test was used to assess for impairment in speech-in-noise hearing.
- SRT refers to the level at which half of the presented speech can be understood correctly.
TAKEAWAY:
- A total of 810 participants were identified with incident PD…