背景：聽覺障礙的原因包含周邊聽覺障礙、中樞聽覺障礙、注意力問題或聽覺理解問題，造成病人生活困難，更可能引發失智症者妄想。近年來，聽覺障礙與阿茲海默症 (Alzheimer’s disease, AD) 的關係逐漸受到重視，國外甚至有學者提出聽覺障礙可能是阿茲海默症的危險因子。中樞聽覺動用的腦區包含顳葉、前額葉與頂葉，若此為早期阿茲海默症受損腦區，中樞聽覺可能受到影響。
目的：本研究欲比較不同年齡層 (極) 輕度阿茲海默症病人與認知健康者中樞聽覺之差異，並加以探討阿茲海默症與中樞聽覺障礙的關係。
方法：予隨機抽樣之AD組與認知健康組一般及神經心理學測驗、周邊聽力測驗、聽覺理解測驗與中樞聽力測驗 (Dichotic Digits Test, DDT及Dichotic Sentence Identification, DSI)，並分析兩組左右耳同時接受不同聲音時的反應。
結果：共102位AD病人 (60–69歲32位、70–79歲33位、80歲以上37位) 與91位健康者 (60–69歲35位、70–79歲31位、80歲以上25位) 完成本研究。依年齡分層比較，三個年齡層在周邊聽覺、聽覺理解與中樞聽覺的表現皆為AD組較差；經Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient分析，AD組額葉功能與中樞聽力測驗分數有正相關；經Exact Logistic Regression分析，DDT總分與DSI總分越高的受試者，為AD的勝算比皆越低，且在三個年齡層皆達顯著。
結論：三個年齡層中，阿茲海默症病人的中樞聽覺表現皆較認知健康組差，且中樞聽覺表現與阿茲海默症之關聯在Exact Logistic Regression中達統計顯著。

Background: The cause of hearing loss includes peripheral auditory dysfunction, central auditory dysfunction (CAD), attention problems and comprehension problems. Hearing loss can lead to difficulties in daily lives, especially for people with dementia. It was said that hearing loss may be a precursor to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). CAD might happen if the related regions, including temporal, anterior frontal and parietal lobes, are damaged in early stages of AD.
Objective: To investigate the performance on central auditory tests by AD patients and cognitive healthy controls (CHC’s), and whether CAD is associated with AD.
Methods: All participants were asked to take cognitive screens, peripheral auditory tests, auditory comprehension test, and central auditory tests, including Dichotic Digits Test (DDT) and Dichotic Sentence Identification (DSI).
Results: 102 AD patients (32 aged 60-69; 33 aged 70-79; 37 aged 80 and over) and 91 CHC’s (35 aged 60-69; 31 aged 70-79; 25 aged 80 and over) completed the tests. Compared to CHC’s, AD patients scored worse on cognitive screens, peripheral auditory tests, auditory comprehension test, and central auditory tests in all age groups. There was a positive relation between frontal function and CAD tests in AD patients. People with higher scores on DDT and DSI also had less chance to be AD.
Conclusion: AD patients scored lower on central auditory tests than CHC’s. Exact Logistic Regression showed significant effect of central auditory tests on AD.

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