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. 2024 Nov 11;24(1):929.
doi: 10.1186/s12877-024-05514-z.

Association of hearing, vision, and dual sensory impairment and risk of Alzheimer's disease: a nested case-control study

Blair Rajamaki  1 , Kaisa Hokkinen  2 , Aarno Dietz  3 , Kai Kaarniranta  4 , Sirpa Hartikainen  5   2 , Anna-Maija Tolppanen  5
Affiliations

Association of hearing, vision, and dual sensory impairment and risk of Alzheimer's disease: a nested case-control study

Blair Rajamaki et al. BMC Geriatr. .

Abstract

Background: Hearing impairment is a known risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), although less is known about vision impairment or dual sensory impairment (DSI) as risk factors for AD. We studied the association between diagnosed hearing impairment, visual impairment, or DSI, and the risk of AD.

Method: The Medication use and Alzheimer's disease study (MEDALZ) is a register-based nested case-control study including 70,718 community-dwelling persons diagnosed with incident AD in 2005-2011 in Finland and their 282,845 matched controls. Sensory impairment diagnoses (limited to those that cause irreversible sensory loss designated by medical specialists) at least five years prior to AD diagnosis (or matching date) were obtained from national healthcare registers, including specialized outpatient visits. Associations were studied with cofounder-adjusted conditional logistic regression.

Results: Hearing impairment was associated with an increased risk of AD compared to people without a diagnosed sensory impairment (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.15, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.11-1.19), while no association was found in people with visual (aOR 1.02, 95% CI 0.99-1.05) or dual sensory impairment (aOR 1.05 (95% CI 0.95-1.15).

Conclusions: Hearing impairment can be a modifiable risk factor for AD, and thus its treatment in the aging population is important. Although we did not observe an association between visual impairment and AD, all sensory impairments decrease functioning and quality of life among older adults. Therefore, they should be treated, also among persons with cognitive decline or cognitive disorder.

Clinical trial number: Not Applicable.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Dual sensory impairment; Hearing impairment; Vision impairment.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations Ethics approval Ethics committee approval or informed consent were not required according to the Finnish legislation (Personal Data Act) because only de-identified, routinely collected register data was used and the study participants were not contacted. The MEDALZ study protocol was approved by the register maintainers (Statistics Finland, SII, and National Institute of Health and Welfare) and the University of Eastern Finland. Consent for publication Not applicable. Competing interests AMT reports a research grant from Amgen, paid through the institution she is employed by, outside of the submitted work. BR, KH, AD, KK and SH have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Study design. a Number of hospitalizations in the year 1987 to capture data prior to exposure. b Earliest date available for outpatient specialized healthcare visits potentially prior to exposure. c Earliest date available for medication use potentially prior to exposure. d 2005 to 2011
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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