Objectives. The present study aimed to determine the effect of music-based auditory training on older adults with hearing loss and decreased cognitive ability, which are common conditions in the older population.Methods. In total, 20 older adults diagnosed with both mild-to-moderately severe hearing loss and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) participated. Half of this group were randomly assigned to the auditory training group (ATG), and the other half were designated as the control group (CG). For the ATG, a 40-minute training session (10 minutes for singing a song, 15 minutes for playing instruments, and 15 minutes for playing games with music discrimination) was conducted twice a week for 8 weeks (for a total of 16 sessions). To confirm the training effects, all participants were given tests pre- and post-training, and then a follow-up test was administered 2 weeks after the training, using various auditory and cognitive tests and a self-reporting questionnaire.Results. The ATG demonstrated significant improvement in all auditory test scores compared to the CG. Additionally, there was a notable enhancement in cognitive test scores post-training, except for the digit span tests. However, there was no statistically significant difference in the questionnaire scores between the two groups, although the ATG did score higher post-training.Conclusion. The music-based auditory training resulted in a significant improvement in auditory function and a partial enhancement in cognitive ability among elderly patients with hearing loss and MCI. We anticipate that this music-based approach will be adopted for auditory training in clinical settings due to its engaging and easy-to-follow nature.

The present study aimed to systematically review to find the best available evidence on the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions that have been used in the community so far. Through eight electronic journal database, 9 articles met our inclusion Participants, Intervention, Control, Outcomes, and Study Design (PICOS) criteria based on medical symptoms, interventions, and improvements. In general, interventions included hand hygiene, mask use, health education such as cough etiquette, hand washing and sanitizer methods. In addition, exercise and meditation were performed to improve immunity. As a result, the number of incidents and absences related to respiratory infections were reduced, the frequency and method of handwashing improved, and there were also positive effects in knowledge, attitude/perception, and performance. We concluded that it is necessary to create an environment and systematic support so that organizations or governments can determine healthy behavior at the same time as an individual approach. Furthermore, the follow-up for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions and the monitoring period should be included during the study, consequently resulting in having an opportunity to continuously remind people about health behavior. The community provides information on various types of non-pharmaceutical intervention to maintain healthy management and lifestyles in the public.

Purpose: Recently, many young people have preferred to work in café than traditional library because the café is equipped with coffee, music, and cozy seats. When working in the café, whether listeners’ attentive concentration could be affected by a kind of the background music needs to be investigated as the purpose of the present study. We also aimed to confirm the attentive concentration of listeners might be caused by their music inclination.Methods: A total of ninety young adults was randomly assigned as five kinds of background music [e.g., rhythm and blues (R&B)/ballad, dance/rock, classic/jazz, fast beats, slow beats] and no music after responding to simple questions to ask their preference of music genre. While listening to the music, the subjects took an attentive concentration test, namely Frankfurter aufmerksamkeits-inventar (FAIR). The obtained data were analyzed by three subcategories of the FAIR test which consists of performance, quality, and continuity.Results: For the music genre, classic/jazz showed significantly higher continuity scores than R&B/ballad, fast beats, and no music, which means that classic/jazz music of the café could help the workers maintain the attention. In the subgroup who listened to preferred music genre, their performance scores (i.e., selective attention) was significantly higher than that of the participants who being exposed to non-preferred music.Conclusion: Current results supports that music genre and individual music inclination may partially affect listener’s ability of the attentive concentration when background music was presented in the café, although a further study to find certain possible causal factors with objective methods should be followed.

Purpose: Many previous studies related to speech recognition of hearing-impaired elderly have found that the elderly have difficulty in monosyllable recognition under noisy situations, but there is still lack of their specific information to perceive the monosyllables in terms of error pattern. The purpose of the present study was to measure and analyze the prominent errors of consonant (C)- vowel (V) combinations as a function of noise levels in the hearing-impaired elderly. Methods: A total of twenty older adults with sensorineural hearing loss participated. While randomly presenting 122 syllables which consisted of the Korean CV and VC combinations under quiet and two signalto-noise ratios (SNRs, +6 and +3 dB) conditions, the participants were asked to respond the syllables heard in a way of either discrimination or identification. Error rate (or percent incorrect) and error patterns of the syllables were analyzed in each condition. Results: Substitution error of the initial consonant showed the highest rate regardless of the background conditions. As the medial phoneme, the vowel errors were decreased as the level of noise increased. In the final consonant, additional error rate of /k/ was abruptly increased as SNR decreased. Furthermore, it was an interesting pattern that the initial consonants such as /s/, /l/, and /t*/ had a high substitution error rate when combined with /i/, /o/, and /ɛ/ vowels, respectively. Conclusion: Based on the current results, the hearing-impaired older adults seem to have their unique error patterns although there is individual difference. We expect that these results will be fundamental data to understand characteristics of speech perception in the older adults at the monosyllables level.

Dementia management has become one of essential factors in the national policy globally in terms of the elderly health care service. In the brief communication, we compared various national reports from other countries to see whether current care service for the dementia had integrative approach for the patients with hearing loss in Korea. We also discussed a need of systematic hearing care for the elderly with dementia who was also a suspected case of aged-related hearing loss because many studies had confirmed that untreated hearing loss has a negative effect on dementia and vice versa. After analyzing the national policy from several countries, we found that the systems had been well established to screen dementia patients by using various clinical tests in UK, Canada, and Japan who provided appropriate services by classifying types of the dementia. Remarkably, the hearing test was included as the testing protocol for the dementia in Canada and the experts such as speech pathologists and music therapists had worked in a non-pharmacotherapy program for the elderly with dementia in France. Unfortunately, the dementia policy of Korea needs to be refined when considering the hearing care/management in that the integrated management of hearing and dementia are important. In addition, the clinicians who work for the dementia care home need to know audiological knowledge. Since the auditory training and rehabilitation for the elderly can reduce increased rate of cognitive decline, we strongly recommend that auditory training should be a part of the cognitive rehabilitation programs in the dementia care home.