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Substantial evidence now links age-related hearing loss to incident major depressive disorder in older adults. However, research examining the neural circuits and behavioral mechanisms by which age-related hearing loss leads to depression is at an early phase. It is known that hearing loss has adverse structural and functional brain consequences, including deafferentation-induced atrophy of auditory cortex and frontotemporal regions, reduction in cognitive control capacities, and disruption of normative emotion processing. Hearing loss is associated with reduced social engagement and loneliness, and often results in tinnitus, which can independently affect cognitive control and emotion processing circuits. While pathways leading from these sequelae of hearing loss to affective dysregulation and even syndromal depression are intuitive to hypothesize, few studies have yet been designed to provide conclusive evidence for specific pathophysiologic mechanisms. Similarly, pilot studies suggest the potential for hearing remediation to reverse specific adverse neural changes in older adults, perhaps by promoting adaptive neuroplasticity, but definitive research remains to be performed. In the following, we review the neurobiological and behavioral consequences of age-related hearing loss, present a model linking them to increased risk for major depressive disorder, and suggest how future studies may facilitate the development of rationally designed therapeutic interventions for hearing-impaired older adults to reduce risk for depression and/or ameliorate depressive symptoms.

Background: Age-related hearing loss (HL) has been associated with dementia, though the neurocognitive profile of individuals with HL is poorly understood. Objective: To characterize the neurocognitive profile of HL. Methods: N = 8,529 participants from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center ≥60 years and free of cognitive impairment who were characterized as Untreated-, Treated-, or No HL. Outcomes included executive function (Trail Making Test [TMT] Part B), episodic memory (Immediate/Delayed Recall), language fluency (Vegetables, Boston Naming Test), and conversion to dementia. Regression models were fit to examine associations between HL and neurocognitive performance at baseline. Cox proportional hazards models examined the links between HL, neurocognitive scores, and development of dementia over follow-up. Results: At baseline, those with Untreated HL (versus No HL) had worse neurocognitive performance per standardized difference on executive function (TMT Part B [mean difference = 0.05 (95% CI 0.00, 0.10)]) and language fluency (Vegetables [mean difference = –0.07 (95% CI –0.14, –0.01)], Boston Naming Test [mean difference = –0.07 (95% CI –0.13, –0.01)]). No differences in these neurocognitive performance scores were demonstrated between Treated HL and No HL groups other than MMSE [mean difference = –0.06 (95% CI –0.12, 0.00)]. Through follow-up, executive dysfunction differed by hearing group (χ2(2) = 46.08, p

Objectives Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is a prevalent condition associated with increased risk for depression and cognitive decline. This 12-week prospective, double-blind pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) of hearing aids (HAs) for depressed older adults with ARHL evaluated the feasibility of a novel research design. Methods/design N = 13 individuals aged ≥60 years with Major Depressive Disorder or Persistent Depressive Disorder and at least mild hearing loss (pure tone average ≥ 30 dB) were randomized to receive full- (active) vs low-amplification (sham) HAs added to psychiatric treatment as usual. Duration of HA use in hours/day, adverse events frequency, attrition rate, and maintenance of the study blinding were the primary outcome measures. Results Compliance with HAs was excellent (>9 hours/day for both groups) and rates of adverse events and drop-outs did not differ between groups. Preliminary data demonstrated differential improvement for active vs sham HAs on hearing functioning (Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly [nonparametric effect size (np-ES) = 0.62]), depressive symptoms (Inventory for Depressive Symptomatology [np-ES = 0.31]), cognition (Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status Immediate Memory [np-ES = 0.25]), and general functioning (World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule [np-ES = 0.53]). Significantly greater than 50% of both groups correctly guessed their treatment assignment, indicating incomplete concealment of treatment allocation. Conclusions This pilot RCT for ARHL and late-life depression was feasible to execute and showed clinical promise, but improved methods of blinding the experimental treatments are needed. Larger studies should investigate whether hearing remediation may be an effective preventative and/or therapeutic strategy for late-life depression and cognitive decline.

Introduction Age-related hearing loss, late-life depression, and dementia are three prevalent and disabling conditions found in older adults, but the inter-relationships between these disorders remain poorly understood. We aimed to determine whether the presence of hearing loss increases risk for incident depression and dementia, and examine whether depression partially mediates the hearing loss-dementia relationship. Methods Data from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) Uniform Dataset were used to evaluate Cox proportional hazard models to determine the effect of hearing loss on incident depression and dementia. A total of 8,529 participants aged 60?years or older who were free of dementia or cognitive impairment at their first NACC visit were available for analysis. Hearing categories included no hearing loss, untreated hearing loss, and treated hearing loss. The main outcome measures were incident depression (15-item Geriatric Depression Scale ≥5) and conversion to dementia (as defined by the Alzheimer's Disease Centers Clinical Task Force). Two Cox proportional hazard models were used: Model A included only baseline variables (hearing loss, depression, and demographics) and Model B included time-varying depression in order to evaluate for the direct effect of incident depression on dementia over time. Results Subjects with treated hearing loss had increased risk for incident depression (OR = 1.24, 95% CI 1.02-1.51) and conversion to dementia (HR = 1.27, 95% CI 1.02-1.60). The presence of baseline depression was a strong independent predictor of conversion to dementia (HR = 2.44, 95% CI 1.86-3.21). Development of depression partially mediated the pathway from hearing loss to dementia, accounting for 8% of the direct hearing-dementia relationship (beta = 0.24 [SE 0.12] in Model A to beta = 0.22 [SE 0.12] in Model B). Conclusions Both hearing loss and depression are independent risk factors for eventual conversion to dementia. The development of depression in a hearing-impaired older adult may be an intermediate step in this pathway. Understanding the brain and behavioral mechanisms linking these conditions may facilitate identification and dissemination of interventions (such as treatment for hearing loss and depression) capable of protecting brain health during aging. This research was funded by: None

Objectives Recent research has revealed important neural and psychiatric consequences of hearing loss (HL) in older adults. This pilot study examined the neural effects of HL and the impact of hearing aids on neuropsychiatric outcomes in major depressive disorder (MDD). Design Twelve-week, double-blind, randomized controlled trial. Participants/Intervention N = 25 (≥60 years) with MDD and moderate-profound HL were randomized to receive hearing aids (100% gain targets) or sham hearing aids (flat 30 dB HL) in addition to psychiatric treatment-as-usual. Measurements Depressive symptoms (Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression [HRSD]), executive functioning (NIH Toolbox Flanker), integrity of auditory brain areas (structural MRI, diffusion tensor imaging). Results At baseline, worse speech discrimination was associated with auditory cortical thinning (Left anterior transverse temporal gyrus: r = 0.755, p = 0.012) and lower integrity of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (FA: Left r = 0.772, p = 0.025, Right r = 0.782, p = 0.022). After 12-weeks, hearing aids were effective at improving hearing functioning (Hearing Handicap for the Elderly: active -12.47 versus sham -4.19, t = -2.64, df = 18, p = 0.016) and immediate memory (active +14.9 versus sham +5.7, t = 2.28, df = 16, p = 0.037). Moderate improvement was observed for hearing aids on executive functioning but did not reach statistical significance (Flanker: active +4.8 versus sham -2.4, t = 1.95, df = 15, p = 0.071). No significant effect on depression was found (HRSD: active -5.50 versus sham -7.32, t = 0.75, df = 19, p = 0.46). Conclusions HL can affect brain regions important for auditory and cognitive processing, and hearing remediation may have beneficial effects on executive functioning in MDD. Future studies may evaluate whether impairment in cognitive control consequent to HL may be an important risk mechanism for MDD.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in persons with dementia (PWD) are common and can lead to poor outcomes, such as institutionalization and mortality, and may be exacerbated by sensory loss. Hearing loss is also highly prevalent among older adults, including PWD. OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the association between hearing loss and NPS among community dwelling patients from a tertiary memory care center. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Participants of this cross-sectional study were patients followed at the Johns Hopkins Memory and Alzheimer’s Treatment Center who underwent audiometric testing during routine clinical practice between October 2014 and January 2017. OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS: Included measures were scores on the Neuropsychiatric Inventory–Questionnaire (NPI-Q) and the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD). RESULTS: Participants (n = 101) were on average 76 years-old, mostly female and white, and had a mean MMSE of 23. We observed a positive association between audiometric hearing loss and the number of NPS (b = 0.7 per 10 dB; 95% CI: 0.2, 1.1; t = 2.86; p = 0.01; df = 85), NPS severity (b = 1.3 per 10 dB; 95% CI: 0.4, 2.5; t = 2.13; p = 0.04; df = 80), and depressive symptom severity (b = 1.5 per 10 dB; 95% CI: 0.4, 2.5; t = 2.83; p = 0.01; df = 89) after adjustment for demographic and clinical characteristics. Additionally, the use of hearing aids was inversely associated with the number of NPS (b = −2.09; 95% CI −3.44, −0.75; t = −3.10; p = 0.003; df = 85), NPS severity (b = −3.82; 95% CI −7.19, −0.45; t = −2.26; p = 0.03; df = 80), and the number of depressive symptoms (b = −2.94; 95% CI: −5.93, 0.06; t = 1.70; p = 0.05; df = 89). CONCLUSIONS: Among patients at a memory clinic, increasing severity of hearing loss was associated with a greater number of NPS, more severe NPS, and more severe depressive symptoms, while hearing aid use was associated with fewer NPS, lower severity, and less severe depressive symptoms. Identifying and addressing hearing loss may be a promising, low-risk, non-pharmacological intervention in preventing and treating NPS.

Objectives To evaluate the association between age-related hearing loss (ARHL) and depressive symptoms in older adults over time. Methods Data from the Health Aging and Body Composition study (N = 3075, aged 70–79 at baseline) were used previously to conduct a longitudinal latent class analysis to evaluate depression trajectories (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression [CES-D] Scale) over 10 years. Restricting to the subset of subjects who had hearing information available (N = 1204), self-reported hearing categories were evaluated over the same period. Association between depression classes and hearing categories were assessed via multinomial logistic regression analyses. Correlation analyses and two-sample t-tests were used to assess cross-sectional associations between depression status and audiometric hearing measures. Results Low-probability (N = 644), increasing-probability (N = 385), and high-probability (N = 175) trajectories of depressive symptoms were identified for the 10-year period. Impaired/Worsening (N = 182) and Healthy/Improving (N = 1,022) hearing categories were defined using self-reports. With the low-probability depression trajectory as the reference group, subjects reporting Impaired/Worsening hearing had 1.63 times increased odds of having an increasing- (p = 0.0088, 95% CI [1.13, 2.34]) and 1.85 times increased odds of having a high-probability depression trajectory (p = 0.0102, 95% CI [1.16, 2.96]). At Year 5, individuals with depressive symptoms (10CES-D ≥ 10) had impaired hearing ability measured by audiometric threshold for low-frequency (Adjusted mean difference = 2.29 dBHL, p = 0.0005) and mid-frequency sounds (Adjusted mean difference = 2.28 dBHL,p = 0.0049) compared to those with 10CES-D Conclusions ARHL was associated with increased depressive symptoms in older adults. Future studies should investigate whether treatment of ARHL may be an effective prevention and/or therapeutic strategy for depressive symptoms.

Introduction Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) has been associated with the development of late-life depression (LLD). However, no prospective, randomized controlled trial of hearing treatment for individuals with ARHL/LLD incorporating comprehensive neuropsychiatric assessments and multimodal neuroimaging has been performed previously. Methods Double-blind randomized controlled trial of hearing aids for individuals aged ≥60 years with a depressive disorder and at least moderate hearing loss (as defined by Pure Tone Average > 50dB). Participants are randomized to full-amplitude hearing aids or low-amplitude (i.e., sham) hearing aids for 12-weeks as an augmentation to antidepressant medications. Primary outcomes include depressive symptoms (Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression [HRSD]), hearing status (Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly [HHIE]), cognitive functioning (Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status [RBANS]), and social functioning (Social Adjustment Scale - Self Report [SAS-SR]), as well as connectivity/activation within the cognitive control network on a response inhibition/interference (Simon) task. Results As the study is ongoing, data is reported for the combined sample (full- and low-amplitude groups) to preserve blinding. However, the between group analyses will be available for presentation at the AAGP Annual Meeting. Over the 12 weeks, significant improvements have been observed on HHIE and HRSD scores (-6.9, ES=0.7, p=0.01 and -7.0, ES=1.4, p=0.002; respectively), SAS-SR (+0.27, ES=0.7, p=0.003), immediate (+9.2, ES=0.6, p=0.005) and delayed memory (+4.4, ES=0.3, p=0.006). Behavioral data for N=13 participants completing the Simon task show significantly slower reaction times (RT, 772.3 vs. 701.6ms, p 100). Conclusions Combination therapy of hearing aids and antidepressant medications may result in improvement in depressive symptoms, cognition, and social functioning among individuals with ARHL and LLD. Further studies are needed to evaluate if hearing remediation can reverse the neuroplastic changes associated with chronic ARHL. Funding 5T32MH020004-22: Research Training in Late-Life Neuropsychiatric Disorders

To assess whether the relationship between hearing and depressive symptoms is present among older adults classified as normal hearing (≤25 dB).Cross-sectional epidemiologic study (Hispanic Community Health Study).US multicentered.Adults ≥50 years old (n = 5,499) with normal hearing or hearing loss (HL).The primary exposure was hearing, defined continuously by the 4-frequency pure-tone average threshold (dB) on audiometry. Hearing was additionally categorized into normal hearing (≤25 dB) and HL (25 dB). The main outcome was depressive symptoms, measured with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-10 (CESD-10). Depressive symptoms were defined both continuously and binarily (where CESD-10 ≥10 was categorized as clinically significant depressive symptoms). Multivariable linear, logistic, and generalized additive modeling (GAM) regressions were performed.Among those with normal hearing, the CESD-10 score increased by 1.04 points (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.70, 1.37) for every 10 dB decrease in hearing, adjusting for age, gender, education, cardiovascular disease, and hearing aid use. Among those with HL, the CESD-10 score increased by 0.62 points (95% CI: 0.23, 1.01) for every 10 dB decrease in hearing, adjusting for the same confounders. Similar findings were noted when the outcome was clinically significant depressive symptoms (adjusted odds ratio: 1.28 [1.14, 1.44] in normal hearing versus 1.26 [1.11, 1.44] in HL). In certain sensitivity analyses, the relationship between hearing and depressive symptoms was significantly stronger among those with normal hearing than in those with HL.The relationship between hearing and clinically significant depressive symptoms is present among older adults with normal hearing (25 dB). We introduce the term subclinical HL as imperfect hearing that is classically defined as normal (1-25 dB). The relationship between hearing and late life depressive symptoms may be more sensitive than previously recognized.

Key Points Question What is the association between hearing, hearing aid use, psychological distress, and utilization of mental health services? Findings In this cross-sectional study using data from 25 665 participants in the 2017 National Health Interview Survey, hearing loss was associated with increased odds of psychological distress and increased utilization of mental health services. Hearing aid use was associated with decreased odds of psychological distress. Meaning The results of this study suggest that hearing loss may be a modifiable risk factor for psychological distress., This cross-sectional study investigates the association between hearing loss, psychological distress, and mental health care utilization among adults in the United States., Importance Psychological distress affects health and health care utilization. Hearing loss (HL) is highly prevalent and undertreated, and it may be a potentially modifiable risk factor for psychological distress. Objective To investigate the association between HL, psychological distress, and mental health care utilization among adults in the United States. Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study included 25 665 individuals aged 18 years and older who participated in the 2017 National Health Interview Survey, a home-based nationally representative cross-sectional survey of noninstitutionalized US adults conducted by trained interviewers. Exposures Self-reported hearing and hearing aid use. Main Outcomes and Measures Kessler psychological distress scale (scores ≥5 indicating moderate distress), self-reported use of medication to treat depression or anxiety symptoms, and use of mental health services in the past year. Results A total of 25 665 adults (mean [SD] age 47.0 [18.1] years, 51.7% [95% CI, 51.0%-52.5%] women, weighted to be representative of the US adult population) were included in the analysis. Compared with 11 558 participants (49.3%; 95% CI, 48.2%-50.5%) with no HL, the 9390 (35.3%; 95% CI, 34.4%-36.2%) with mild HL and 4717 (15.4%; 95% CI, 14.8%-16.0%) with moderate or worse HL had increased odds of moderate psychological distress (mild HL: odds ratio [OR], 1.49; 95% CI, 1.35-1.62; moderate HL: OR, 2.12; 95% CI, 1.87-2.41) and were more likely to report antidepressant medication use (mild HL: OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.17-1.67; moderate HL: OR, 2.07; 95% CI, 1.70-2.57), and antianxiety medication use (mild HL: OR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.16-1.67; moderate HL: OR, 1.94; 95% CI, 1.57-2.39). Moderate HL was associated with increased odds of use of mental health services (moderate HL: OR, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.30-1.79). Among individuals with moderate HL, those with hearing aids (1066 [22.6%]) were less likely to experience psychological distress than those without hearing aids (3651 [77.4%]; OR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.53-0.83). Conclusions and Relevance In a large nationally representative sample of US adults, self-reported HL was associated with both greater psychological distress and increased rates of antidepressant and antianxiety medication use and utilization of mental health services. Further research is needed to investigate whether HL may be a modifiable risk factor for these outcomes.

Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is the third most common health condition affecting older adults after heart disease and arthritis and is the fifth leading cause of years lived with disability worldwide. The prevalence of ARHL rises steeply with age, from 3% among adults 20-29 to 49% of adults ages 60-69 and over 80% in individuals 85 years of age and older. Many hearing-impaired older adults avoid or withdraw from social contexts in which background noise will make it difficult to communicate, resulting in social isolation and reduced communication with family and friends. Social isolation and loneliness have been linked to numerous adverse physical and mental health outcomes, including dementia, depression, and mortality, and they may also lead to declining physical activity and the development of the syndrome of frailty. Neuroimaging studies of ARHL have begun to elucidate the brain changes associated with degraded auditory input that provide plausible pathways by which chronic hearing loss may cause cognitive dysfunction and affective dysregulation. Specifically, compensatory activation increases in the cognitive control network (CCN) to support effortful listening may reduce the resources available for higher level tasks, while chronic deafferentiation leads to atrophy of primary auditory regions and impaired downstream cognitive and affective processing of speech. The overall goal of this symposium is to review data linking ARHL to depression and cognitive decline in an effort to make geriatric psychiatrists more aware of the implications of this ubiquitous aging process for their patients. Dr. Bret Rutherford, who is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University and Director of the Neurobiology and Therapeutics of Aging Division at Columbia, will Chair the symposium. Specifically, he will open the symposium with a brief introductory presentation and then proceed to introduce the speakers and discussant. Dr. Rutherford is well-positioned to serve this role, as he has recently authored an American Journal of Psychiatry review article on hearing loss and late life neuropsychiatry and is principal investigator of an NIA-funded R21 research project focuses on treating ARHL in order to improve depressive symptoms. The first speaker will be Dr. Justin Golub, who is Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery at Columbia. Dr. Golub has received a K23 Award from the NIA for a project titled "Mechanisms Linking Hearing Loss and Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias" that examines the associations of objectively measured ARHL with imaging markers of ADRD and cognitive performance in late middle aged persons. Dr. Golub will discuss his longitudinal studies linking audiometrically assessed ARHL to AD neuropathology (brain amyloid β with 18F-Florbetaben positron emission tomography [PET] and tau in inferior and medial temporal lobes using18F-THK5351 PET), cerebrovascular disease (CVD) on MRI, as well as comprehensively assessed cognition. Next, Dr. Katherine Brewster, who is a PGY IV psychiatry resident working in Dr. Rutherford's laboratory at Columbia, will present original data focusing on ARHL and depression. She will review a recent first-authored AJGP publication in which she analyzed Health Aging and Body Composition Survey data to show that ARHL increased risk for incident depressive symptoms in these otherwise healthy older adults over 10-year follow up. Dr. Brewster will go on to present data from a pilot randomized controlled trial in which older adults with comorbid hearing loss and Late-life Depression were prospectively treated under double-blind conditions with hearing aids or sham hearing aids. She will review the strengths of the study methodology, which include the first known effort to blind depressed subjects to hearing aid vs. sham treatment, and discuss implications of the initial study results. Finally, Dr. Anu Sharma, Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will present work from her research program on the neural consequences of auditory deprivation in older adults. This presentation will provide a neural mechanism for the clinical/epidemiologic links between hearing loss and depression/dementia discussed in the first two talks using electrophysiologic and neuroimaging data from Dr. Sharma's studies. The discussant will be Dr. Frank Lin, who is Associate Professor of Otolaryngology and Medicine (Geriatrics) in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and of Epidemiology and Mental Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Lin is the ideal discussant for this topic, and his public health research focuses on understanding how hearing loss affects the health and functioning of older adults and the strategies and policies needed to mitigate these effects. From 2014-2016, Dr. Lin helped lead initiatives with the National Academies, White House and Congress focused on hearing loss, aging and public health which resulted in passage of the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017 that overturned 40 years of established regulatory precedent in the U.S. As the director of the Cochlear Center at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Lin oversees nearly $30 million in committed NIH and philanthropic funding dedicated to advancing the mission areas of the Center.

Recent research has linked age-related hearing loss to impaired performance across cognitive domains and increased risk for dementia diagnosis. The data linking hearing impairment to incident late-life depression are more mixed but suggest that diminished hearing does increase risk for depression. Behavioral mechanisms may explain these associations, such as the withdrawal of older adults from situations in which they may have difficulty hearing and communicating, which may contribute to the development of social isolation, loneliness, and consequent cognitive decline and depression. At a neural level, chronic hearing loss leads to reduced activation in central auditory pathways, resulting in compensatory increased activation in the cognitive control network, dysfunctional auditory-limbic connectivity, and deafferentation-induced atrophy in frontal brain regions. These pathologic changes decrease cognitive performance and increase depression risk by reducing cognitive reserve, increasing executive dysfunction, and disrupting normative emotion reactivity and regulation. Based on the available data and informed by this model, evidence-based suggestions are proposed for clinicians treating older adults, and a research agenda is advanced to facilitate the development of rationally designed and age-appropriate psychiatric treatments for older adults with age-related hearing loss. First and foremost, treating hearing loss should be investigated as a means of improving cognitive and depressive outcomes in well-designed studies incorporating comprehensive psychiatric assessments, randomization, objective documentation of compliance, and analyses of treatment mediators that will facilitate further therapeutic development. Multimodal neuroimaging studies integrating audiometric, neuropsychological, and clinical assessments also are needed to further evaluate the model proposed. [AJP at 175: Remembering Our Past As We Envision Our Future April 1995: Effect of Hearing Enhancement on Medical Status Ratings Twenty-one elderly psychiatric patients had lower levels of psychopathology when assessed while wearing hearing aids. (Am J Psychiatry 1995; 152:629-631 )].

Introduction Age-related hearing loss (AHRL) is the third most common health condition affecting older adults after heart disease and arthritis. The prevalence of clinically significant hearing impairment rises steeply with age, from 3% among adults 20-29 to 49% of adults ages 60-69 and over 80% in individuals 85 years of age and older. Initial studies suggest that remediation of hearing loss using hearing aids may decrease depressive symptoms over longitudinal follow-up. However, important limitations to these studies call for controlled trials of hearing remediation as a treatment for late-life depression (LLD). We conducted the first double-blind randomized clinical trial utilizing rigorous control groups, objective documentation of compliance of the hearing aid, enrollment of subjects with clinical depression, and incorporation of comprehensive neuropsychological assessments. Our main aims were to consider the feasibility, acceptability, tolerability of such a study, as well as ability to blind the hearing aid devices. Methods 12 individuals were recruited who were aged ≥60 years, diagnosed with a clinically significant depressive disorder, and had mild-severe hearing loss. Baseline psychiatric, audiometric, neuropsychological, and functional assessments were performed. Participants were then randomized to receive either full-amplitude active hearing aids or low-amplitude sham hearing aids over a 12-week prospective trial, either as monotherapy or as an augmentation with antidepressant medications. The sham hearing aid was programmed to a hearing threshold of 10dB, which resulted in a small volume increase without substantively improving the subject's ability to hear. The baseline evaluation was repeated at the study endpoint. Results Of the 12 subjects who completed the study, 7 received active and 5 received sham hearing aids. Acceptability of the hearing aid, evaluated as the duration of time participants wore the hearing aids between the active and sham groups, was high as all subjects used the devices for >9 hours a day and the duration was not statistically significant between groups (p = 0.05). Tolerability was measured as proportions of subjects who experienced adverse events during participation, which were acceptable and included insomnia, drowsiness, and excitement. Feasibility was also acceptable, as 86.7% of the enrolled subjects completed the 12-week study. Blind assessments were evaluated as proportions of subjects who correctly guessed whether they were wearing active or sham hearing aids and was not in effect as the majority of subjects guessed correctly (92% in sham [p Conclusions Data from this study suggests that the study design of a double-blind randomized clinical trial of hearing aids as a treatment for LLD was highly acceptable to the subjects. Future studies with larger sample sizes should investigate whether hearing remediation may be an effective therapeutic strategy for LLD. Efforts should be made to improve the ability to blind the hearing aid such as increasing the hearing threshold of the sham devices. Should future studies prove to be successful, this suggests a novel therapeutic strategy for LLD and thereby mitigate its public health burden, while also contributing to the increased recognition and treatment of ARHL more generally. This research was funded by CaMPR Phase II: Columbia University Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (Rutherford [PI]) Phonak, a hearing assistance company, supplied the Audeo BR 90 hearing aid devices. PDF: http://submissions.mirasmart.com/Verify/AAGP2019/Original/AAGP2019-000298/AAGP2019-000298_Fig1.pdf PDF: http://submissions.mirasmart.com/Verify/AAGP2019/Original/AAGP2019-000298/AAGP2019-000298_Fig2.pdf

Importance Age-related hearing loss is highly prevalent and has recently been associated with numerous morbid conditions of aging. Late-life depression is also prevalent and can be resistant to available treatments. Preliminary studies examining the association between hearing loss and late-life depression have been limited by subjective hearing measures, small sample sizes, and primarily white populations. Objective To assess whether a cross-sectional association exists between objective audiometric hearing loss and depressive symptoms in older Hispanic adults. Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study uses 2008-2011 Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos data collected in Miami, Florida, San Diego, California, Chicago, Illinois, or the Bronx, New York, from 5328 Hispanic adults 50 years or older who had exposure, outcome, and covariate data. Data analyses were conducted from March 2018 to September 2018. Exposure Audiometric hearing loss (pure-tone average). Main Outcomes and Measures Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, 10-item version (CESD-10) score of 10 or higher, which indicates clinically significant depressive symptoms. Results The median age (interquartile range) of the 5328 participants was 58 (53-63) years, and 3283 participants (61.6%) were female. The mean (SD) CESD-10 score was 7.7 (6.4). Of the 5328 included participants, 1751 (32.9%) had clinically significant depressive symptoms. The odds of having these symptoms increased 1.44 (95% CI, 1.27-1.63) times for every 20 dB of hearing loss, adjusting for hearing aid use, age, sex, educational level, study site, geographic background, cardiovascular disease, and antidepressant use. Compared with those for individuals with normal hearing (0 dB), the odds of having clinically significant depressive symptoms was 1.81 (95% CI, 1.48-2.22) times as high in individuals with mild hearing loss (median threshold, 32.5 dB), 2.38 (95% CI, 1.77-3.20) times as high in individuals with moderate hearing loss (median threshold, 47.5 dB), and 4.30 (95% CI, 2.61-7.09) times as high in individuals with severe hearing loss (median threshold, 80 dB). Conclusions and Relevance Objective hearing loss appears to be associated with clinically significant depressive symptoms in older Hispanic people, with greater hearing loss seemingly associated with greater odds of having depressive symptoms. Given the high prevalence of untreated hearing loss in older adults, hearing loss may be a potentially modifiable risk factor for late-life depression.