Effects of Short-term Choir Participation on Auditory Perception in Hearing-aided Older Adults.

NCT03604185 | Terminated

• 1 other identifier: HAC 2018-089
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 81
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Hearing loss has been associated with decreased emotional wellbeing and reduced quality of life in aging adults. Although hearing aids can target aspects of peripheral hearing loss, persistent perceptual deficits are widely reported. One prevalent example is the loss of the ability to perceive speech in a noisy environment, which severely impacts quality of life and goes relatively unremediated by hearing aids. Musicianship has been shown to improve aspects of auditory processing, but has not been studied as a short-term intervention for improving these abilities in older adults with hearing aids. The current study investigates whether short-term choir participation can improve three aspects of auditory processing: perception of speech in noise, pitch discrimination, and the neural response to brief auditory stimuli (frequency following response; FFR). Sixty hearing aided older adults (aged 50+) recruited from the Greater Toronto Area will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a choir singing class (n=20), a music appreciation class (n=20), and a do-nothing control group (n=20). Choir participants will take part in a singing class for 14 weeks, during which they will take part in group singing (2 hours/week) supported by individual online musical training (1 hour/week). Participants will undergo pre- and post-training assessments, conducted during the first week of the choir class and again after the last week. Participants in the music appreciation class will be involved in 14 weeks of music listening classes, and the do-nothing control group will not engaged in an active intervention. All participants will undergo the same battery of assessments, measured before and after the 14-week time frame. Auditory assessments (speech perception in noise and pitch discrimination tests) will be administered electronically, and the FFR will be obtained using electroencephalography (EEG). Each of the four assessment sessions (two pre-training, two post-training) will last approximately 1.5 hours, for a total of 6 hours of data collection. The goal of this research is to investigate whether short-term musical training will result in improved auditory outcomes for older adults with hearing aids. It is predicted that the choir singing group will demonstrate the greatest improvements across all auditory measures, and that both the choir singing and musical appreciation groups will experience greater improvements than the do-nothing control group.

Conditions

Hearing Loss; Auditory Perception; Music Therapy; Aging

Keywords

Hearing Loss; Auditory Processing; Aging; Speech Perception in Noise (SIN); Pitch Discrimination; Frequency Following Response (FFR); Choir Singing; Musical Training

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Speech-in-noise perception: Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)

  Ability to track speech in a noisy environment will be assessed using the QuickSIN test (Speech-In-Noise; Etymotic Research; Killion, Niquette, Gudmundsen, Revit, \& Banerjee, 2004) and the Revised Speech Perception in Noise (R-SPIN) test (Bilger, 1984).

  14 weeks

Secondary Outcomes (2)

• Pitch discrimination: Frequency Difference Limens (FDL)

  14 weeks

• Frequency Following Response (FFR)

  14 weeks

Study Arms (3)

Choir Singing Group

EXPERIMENTAL

Choir participants will take part in weekly two-hour group choral sessions over the course of fourteen weeks, during which time they will receive pitch training and vocal direction. In addition to the weekly group choir sessions, participants will be offered optional individual online musical and vocal training exercises (up to one hour weekly).

Behavioral: Choir Singing

Music Appreciation Group

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Participants assigned to the music appreciation class will take part in a fourteen week course which will emphasize analytic listening to musical excerpts, which will match the choir class in terms of duration, homework demands, and instructor - both classes will be taught by the same person.

Behavioral: Music Appreciation

Do-Nothing Control Group

NO INTERVENTION

The do-nothing control group will not receive any active training.

Interventions

Choir Singing BEHAVIORAL

A weekly 2-hour group choral session over fourteen weeks. Plus an optional weekly 1-hour online musical and vocal training session.

Choir Singing Group

Music Appreciation BEHAVIORAL

A fourteen week course which will emphasize analytic listening to musical excerpts, and will match the choir class in terms of duration, homework demands, and instructor.

Music Appreciation Group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 50 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Older adults (50+)
• Have a hearing aid
• Hearing loss must be mild-moderate (i.e. between 25 and 60 dB HL at standard test frequencies)
• Hearing loss must be symmetrical (i.e. no more than 25 dB HL difference between ears at any standard test frequency)

You may not qualify if:

• Adults younger than 50
• Do not have a hearing aid
• Hearing loss exceeds mild-moderate rating (i.e. any standard test frequency measures higher than 25 - 60 dB HL)
• Hearing loss is asymmetrical (i.e. at any standard test frequency the difference between ears is larger than 25 dB HL).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Toronto Metropolitan University: lead
• Sonova AG: collaborator
• Mitacs: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

Toronto Metropolitan University

Toronto, Ontario, M5B 1Y3, Canada

Location

Related Publications (3)

• Killion MC, Niquette PA, Gudmundsen GI, Revit LJ, Banerjee S. Development of a quick speech-in-noise test for measuring signal-to-noise ratio loss in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. J Acoust Soc Am. 2004 Oct;116(4 Pt 1):2395-405. doi: 10.1121/1.1784440.

  PMID: 15532670 BACKGROUND

• Bilger RC. (1984b) Speech recognition test development. In: Elkins E, ed. Speech Recognition by the Hearing Impaired. ASHA Reports 14. Rockville, MD: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

  BACKGROUND

• Skoe E, Kraus N. Auditory brain stem response to complex sounds: a tutorial. Ear Hear. 2010 Jun;31(3):302-24. doi: 10.1097/AUD.0b013e3181cdb272.

  PMID: 20084007 BACKGROUND

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Hearing Loss

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Hearing Disorders; Ear Diseases; Otorhinolaryngologic Diseases; Sensation Disorders; Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Study Officials

• Frank Russo, PhD

  Toronto Metropolitan University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

• Ella Dubinsky, MA

  Toronto Metropolitan University

  STUDY DIRECTOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Doctor

Model Details: Sixty hearing aided older adults will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a choir singing class (n=20), a music appreciation class (n=20), and a do-nothing control group (n=20). Choir participants will take part in a singing class for 14 weeks, during which they will take part in group singing (2 hours/week) supported by individual online musical training (1 hour/week). Participants will undergo pre- and post-training assessments, conducted during the first week of the choir class and again after the last week. The music appreciation group will consist of hearing aided older adults attending 14 weeks of music listening classes, and the do-nothing control group will not be engaged in an active intervention. All participants will undergo the same battery of assessments, measured before and after the 14-week time frame.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: July 18, 2018
• First Posted: July 27, 2018
• Study Start: September 1, 2018
• Primary Completion: March 13, 2020
• Study Completion: March 13, 2020
• Last Updated: April 6, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-04

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

CA (1)