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The Relationship Between Speech in Noise Comprehension and Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity in UK Biobank
Poster Session C, Saturday, September 13, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm, Field House
Bridget Carey1, Timothy Morris, Meishan Ai, Arthur Kramer, Charles Hillman, Jonathan E Peelle; 1Northeastern University
INTRODUCTION: Many listeners report difficulty following conversations in noisy environments regardless of hearing ability. Despite decades of interest in understanding why some listeners struggle to understand speech in noise more than others, answers remain elusive. Prior work suggests that communicating in noisy environments requires the upregulation of executive functions supported by activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Given the rich literature supporting the benefits of physical activity for executive functions, we hypothesized that spending time in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity would be beneficial for speech in noise comprehension. METHODS: Participants (N=95,259; 55.9% female) in the UK Biobank dataset wore an accelerometer for 7 days and completed questionnaires. Derived accelerometer data came from a machine-learning model classifying movement behaviors as time spent in sleep, sedentary behavior, light physical activity, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Participants also answered two questions about their hearing status: “Do you have any difficulty with your hearing?” and “Do you find it difficult to follow a conversation if there is background noise (such as TV, radio, children playing)?” By breaking participants into two groups based on their “yes” and “no” answers to those questions, we ran a logistic regression to see if time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity decreases the likelihood of reporting a hearing problem or a problem with speech in noise. Additionally, we ran another analysis grouping participants into whether they spent at least 150 minutes (>1.49% of their week) in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity or not (i.e., < 1.49% of their week). We then ran logistic regressions to determine if spending at least 150 minutes in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity decreases the likelihood of reporting a hearing problem or a problem with speech in noise. RESULTS: We found that spending more time in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity significantly decreases the odds of reporting a hearing problem or problem with speech in noise. Specifically, for every 1% increase in time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the odds of reporting a hearing problem decrease by 2.04% and the odds of reporting a hearing problem decrease by .96%. Spending at least 150 minutes in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity was a significant predictor of hearing outcomes for both questions. Meeting this criterion was associated with a 7.6% reduction in the odds of reporting a hearing problem and a 5.3% reduction in the odds of reporting difficulty with speech in noise. DISCUSSION: These findings show that more time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and spending at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week is associated with a significantly reduced likelihood of reporting a hearing or speech in noise problem. These findings suggest that physical activity may be a protective factor in age-related speech in noise comprehension decline. The answer to improving adversity with degraded speech may not lie in another product or advancement in technology but rather in the simplicity of a lifestyle change. Targeting physical activity as a non-invasive and low-cost intervention may make the common decline in speech in noise comprehension that comes with age less imminent.
Topic Areas: Speech Perception,