Clinical utility of response time in speech audiometry in elderly with mild cognitive impairment

Objectives: This study investigated whether verbal response time (RT) as a measure of listening effort in speech audiometry could be an indicator for identifying elderly individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Design: Korean sentence recognition tests were conducted in favourable (+5 dB signal-to-noise ratio [SNR]) and adverse (-5 dB SNR) conditions in the presence of noise. Sentence recognition scores (SRSs) and RTs for the two groups were measured and analysed with other demographic variables. Study samples: Fourteen elderly adults who were diagnosed with MCI and 14 age-matched adults with normal cognition participated in this study. Results: No statistical difference was found between the SRSs of the two groups. RTs for the MCI elderly were significantly longer than the control group. We found significant correlations of RTs with SRSs, Korean Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE) scores, and age at -5 dB SNR. Only the SRSs were correlated with the RTs at +5 dB SNR. Conclusions: This study found that elderly individuals with MCI need a longer time for sentence recognition in noise. These findings suggest that measuring RT in speech audiometry could potentially be a cost-effective and time-saving method that could characterise elderly with MCI at hearing-care clinics.