PRESENCE OF HEARING LOSS AND HYPERTENSION IN ADULTS AND ELDERLY.

Abstract

Objective: This study had as objective to verify the possible relationship between the presence of systemic blood hypertension (SBH) and hearing loss (HL) in adults and elderly, also looking for to analyze the influences of gender and age variables in both alterations. Method: It was analyzed the results of the hearing screening and arterial hypertension evaluations that were found in handbooks of the courses of Speech and hearing therapy and Nursing respectively. Results: It was evaluated 76 subjects, being 55 female and 21 male, with ages between 47 and 80 years old. The research pointed that elderly present a larger prevalence of altered hearing screening. There was no significant association between hearing screening/SBH and gender. The age was not decisive in the presence or absence of SBH and there was no association between the presence of SBH and failure in the hearing screening. Conclusion: The hypertensive subjects didn't present larger failure in the hearing screening than the normotensives. The SBH was not statistically related to elderly citizen, however with age advancing, it appeared more hearing alterations, probably because of the aging process. Key words: arterial hypertension, audition, elderly