Pure tone and speech audiometry of presbyacusis in a tertiary hospital in Kaduna, Nigeria: a cross-sectional study

Introduction: presbyacusis is age-related hearing loss, manifesting as a bilateral symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss of adult-onset. It has different audiometric configurations and is associated with a decline in speech discrimination sensitivity. The objectives of the study were to determine the degree of hearing loss; types of presbyacusis; and speech discrimination score (SDS) of presbyacusics and to compare the SDS in different types of presbyacusis in patients seen at a tertiary hospital in Kaduna, Nigeria. Methods: a descriptive cross-sectional study, involving 41 presbyacusics seen at the ear, nose and throat (ENT) clinic of a tertiary hospital in Kaduna. Participants had clinical evaluation; pure tone and speech audiometry with clinical audiometer Avant A2D+ Med Rx, USA. Results were analysed using SPSS version 20. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test were used to evaluate the difference between Speech discrimination scores in different types of presbyacusis, the level of significance was set at a p-value < 0.05. Results: hearing threshold ranged from 26.3-107.5 dBHL, mean of 55.7 +/- 18.2 dBHL. Moderate hearing loss (46.3%) was the most prevalent degree of hearing loss. Neural presbyacusis (28.8%) was the commonest. Speech reception threshold (SRT) ranged from 30-85dBHL mean of 61.8 +/- 14.9 dBHL, and SDS ranged from 098% mean of 69.38 +/- 20.0%. SDS of sensory presbyacusis was statistically higher than cochlearconductive, and neural presbyacusis (p-value 0.026 and 0.001 respectively) while the metabolic was higher than neural presbyacusis (p-value 0.005). Conclusion: neural presbyacusis was the commonest, moderate hearing loss was the most prevalent degree of hearing loss and sensory presbyacusis had the best SDS.