Investigations of sensory problems for older people in daily life: Including a group of middle-aged people

Abstract

Our sensory functions decline with age. Older people have been reported to compensate for sensory deficits by using auxiliary equipment, medical treatments, and sensory mechanisms such as multimodal integrations. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no systematic surveys research for sensory problems of older people in daily life. Through an online survey, we investigated what kind of sensory problems exist and how these problems were coped with by older people (60-70 years old), with middle-aged people (40-50 years old) data. Frequency and text-mining analyses found that problems of hearing and body movements were reported more frequently for older people due to aging. Visual problems were reported by all age groups and were attributed to aging, but coped with by using auxiliary equipment and medical surgeries in older people. The 50’s age group reported visual problems most frequently. Our findings suggest that sensory problems subjectively felt in daily life are attributed to aging but are not necessarily remarkable in older people.