More than 94 % old people lose at
least one of five senses
A new study that measured age-related damage to all the
five senses: vision, smell, hearing, touch, and taste has found that 94 percent
of older adults in the US lose at least one of the five key senses, but often
more. In the study, University of Chicago researchers examined how often
multisensory losses occur and what their impact on older adults might be. They
analyzed data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP),
a population-based study of adults ages 57-85. The study collected information
about the participants’ senses of vision, touch, smell, hearing, and taste. The
participants were also asked to rate their physical health. The researchers
found that 67 percent of the older adults had two or more sensory losses. Of
those with multisensory losses, 65 percent had substantial loss in at least one
of their senses, and 22 percent experienced substantial loss in two or more
senses.
The study showed that 74 percent of participants suffered
impairment in their ability to taste, which was the most common sensory loss,
while 38 percent of participants had a sense of touch that was ‘fair;’ 32
percent said it was ‘poor.’ The research found that 22 percent had smell
impairment (19 percent fair/3 percent poor function) and 14 percent had
corrected distance vision that was ‘fair;’ 6 percent said it was ‘poor.’ 13
percent rated their corrected hearing as ‘fair;’ 5 percent said it was ‘poor.’
Older age was linked to poorer function in all five senses; the largest
differences were in hearing, vision, and smell. What’s more, men had worse
functioning for hearing, smell, and taste than did women, although, men had
better corrected vision than women. African Americans and Hispanics tended to
have worse sensory function than Caucasians in all senses except hearing.
Hispanics tended to have better function in taste than those from other groups.
The researchers said that losing more than one sense might
explain why older adults report having a poorer quality of life and face
challenges in interacting with other people and the world around them. The
researchers suggested that further studies into multi sensory loss hold promise
for designing better programs to prevent or treat loss and to ease the
suffering such losses cause.
The study is published in the Journal of the
American Geriatrics Society.
Source: www.thehealthsite.com
23.02.2016
A handfull of
patience is worth
a million of brains
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