Early Onset of Presbyacusis in Down Syndrome

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Puretone threshold data are repoted as a function of age for 152 subjects with Down syndrome (age range: 5.4 years to 59.1 years). Results for the Down syndrome subjects were compared to data collected on 53 non-syndrome mentally-retarded subjects, and to data previously collected by jatho (1969) for normal individuals. The results revealed that Down syndrome subjects have an earlier onset of presbyacusis than both normal individuals and non-syndrome mentally-retarded subjects, and that presbyacusis is evident in Down syndrome by a at least the second decade of life. The data imply that for Down syndrome sudjects, early onset of presbyacusis is another manifestation of precocious aging. The study of presbyacusis in Down syndrome may give us additional insights on presbyacusis in the normal population. The results further imply that studies concerned with the incidence and type of hearing loss in Down syndrome need to take age into consideration.

This publication has 22 references indexed in Scilit: