Steven Rauch from the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues from Singapore and the United States conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis that showed that hearing loss is associated with a significantly increased risk of falls. The work included data from 27 publications, in which assessments were made with adjustments for confounding factors, from the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases. In total, they contained information on almost 5.1 million people (49.2 percent women) from Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. The analysis was carried out using random-effects models. The results were published in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology — Head & Neck Surgery.
Participants with hearing loss were found to have increased cross-sectional falls (odds ratio 1.51) and longitudinal falls (odds ratio 1.17) compared to people with normal hearing. Additional subgroup and risk factor analyses confirmed the significance of these findings. Thus, hearing loss may be a potential modifiable risk factor for falls, but randomized clinical trials are needed to confirm this, the authors conclude.