Turkish Journal of Geriatrics 2022 , Vol 25, Issue 2
THE EFFECTS OF FACE MASK USE DURING COVID-19 ON SPEECH COMPREHENSION IN GERIATRIC PATIENTS WITH HEARING LOSS WHO USE LIP-READING FOR COMMUNICATION: A PROSPECTIVE CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY
Bilal SİZER1, Songül DEMİR2, Ümit YILMAZ3, Nureliş YENİCELİ4, Yakup BUDAK5, Argün Ediz YORGANCILAR6, İsmail TOPÇU7
1Ä°stanbul Arel University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Otorhinolaryngology Clinic, istanbul, Turkey
2Mardin Public Hospital, Department of Otorhinolaryngology Clinic, Mardin, Turkey
3Selahaddin Eyyubi Public Hospital, Department of Otorhinolaryngology Clinic, Diyarbakır, Turkey
4Mardin Public Hospital, Department of Audiology, Mardin, Turkey
5Dicle Universitiy Faculty of Medicine, Department of Audiology, Diyarbakır, Turkey
6Usküdar University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Otorhinolaryngology Clinic, İstanbul, Turkey
7Dicle Universitiy Faculty of Medicine, Department of Otorhinolaryngology Clinic, Diyarbakır, Turkey DOI : 10.31086/tjgeri.2022.285 Objective: Communication difficulties are considered the most significant consequence of hearing loss. This study aimed to determine whether surgical face masks, which have been mandatory throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, have an effect on speech comprehension scores in geriatric lip-reading patients with hearing loss and to raise awareness of the need for solutions to this problem.

Materials and Method: Patients with moderate and higher sensorineural or mixed bilateral symmetrical hearing loss who stated that they lip-read to better understand during communication were included in the study. The patients" speech comprehension scores were gathered while the audiologist wore a surgical mask and then a transparent mask, respectively.

Results: Twelve (33,3%) of the patients were female, and 24 (66.7%) were male. The mean age of the patients was 66.64±1.53 years. The mean speech comprehension scores of the patients when the audiologist was wearing a surgical mask (38.25±14.33) and a transparent mask (67.81 ± 14.30), respectively, were compared. The surgical mask significantly affected speech comprehension scores, and the Cohen d value of the effect size was 2.06. As such, the surgical face mask had a great effect on these patients" speech comprehension scores.

Conclusions: In elderly lip-reading patients who suffer from hearing loss, seeing the lip movements of the speaker, especially in hospital applications, promotes more effective communication. Transparent face masks can be considered a solution. Keywords : COVID-19; Geriatrics; Pandemics; Masks; Hearing Loss; Lipreading