| With the acceleration of the aging trend in China and the development of economy and society,the issues of the elderly people have gradually become the focus of attention of all sectors of the society.The hearing impairment of the elderly leads to the communication barrier between the elderly and others,resulting in a variety of negative psychological diseases,such as low self-esteem,autism and the like.Therefore,it is highly necessary to provide a comfortable living environment for the elderly people.A questionnaire survey was conducted in the residential area of Guangzhou,and 582 of elderly over 60 years old was recruited randomly.The hearing status of the elderly was evaluated by the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly(HHIE).The participants' subjective responses to the acoustical environment of their living place and the impact of the living acoustical environment(LAE)on the participants were investigated.The statistical results show that the prevalence of hearing impairment of elderly in Guangzhou is 42.1%,the older elderly are more likely to be affected by hearing problems in daily life and physical and mental health,and the age of seventy years old are the sensitive age of hearing loss for elderly people.The proportion of using hearing aids for the elderly with hearing handicap is low and their ages concentrated in the age of more than 75 years old.Most of the elderly people who use hearing aids are having severe hearing handicap.The elderly using hearing aids with both ear have a significantly higher HHIE scores than the elderly with monaural hearing aids.The results show that the participants with a low HHIE score and no hearing impairment evaluated their LAE more favorably,and they considered that the effect of the LAE on their daily life was weak.However,those with a high HHIE score and severe hearing impairment evaluated their LAE poorly,and considered its effect on their daily lives to be significant.For the elderly,the worse the hearing is,the higher their demand for a better LAE.Traffic,construction,residential quarters,and noise from next door or upstairs neighbors were the main noise sources in the elderly's living places,and traffic noise,construction noise,and noise from next door and upstairs were the most influential sources.28.9%of the respondents had trouble hearing what their family said in their living place.The elderly without hearing impairment considered that continuous noise was the main reason that they could not hear what their family said in their living place,while those with hearing impairment believed that their ownhearing problem was a contributing factor.62 rooms including living rooms,common rooms and dining rooms in 11 elderly care facilities had been investigated,and some objective acoustical parameters in these rooms were measured such as background noise level(BNL)and reverberation time(RT).The range of BNL in 62 rooms was from 26.8d BA to 67.2d BA,and the mean BNL was 41.3d BA and the standard deviation(SD)was 10.1d BA.In these rooms,the averaged BNL in the living rooms was lower than those in the common rooms and the dining rooms,while the dining rooms had the highest averaged BNL.The RT in in 500~4000Hz octave bands,early-to-late sound ratio(C50)in 500~4000Hz octave bands and speech transmission index(STI)in these rooms were 0.36~1.86 s,-4.48~9.67 d B and 0.47~0.81,respectively.Their mean values were0.94 s,1.73 d B and 0.64,and the SD were 0.40 s,3.09 d B and 0.09,respectively.For all these measured rooms,the living room had a relatively short RT with a good speech intelligibility,while the dining room had a long RT with a fair speech intelligibility.To provide the elderly people with a good speech communication environment,some sound absorption and insulation treatment measures should be taken for the long RT and high BNL in the rooms of the elderly care facilities to reduce the BNL and RT and improve the speech intelligibility in these rooms.The method of questionnaire survey and subjective evaluation method was adopted to investigate the living environment of nursing homes and to test the hearing of the elderly people.The participants are the elderly people aged over 70 years old living in nursing homes.Hearing test results show that the average pure tone threshold(PTA)gradually increases with the growth of frequency and age.The results of the questionnaire show that the noises from the outside and the same floor have a greater impact on the elderly people interviewed.The noises which can heard in the nursing homes are usually from birds and bugs,aircraft,next doors,air conditioning fans,construction sites,hallways,corridors,stairwells,cars,etc.The noise that affects the daily lives of the elderly people is mainly from the corridors,stairwells or next doors.The results of the questionnaire indicate that the interviewed elderly are more satisfied with the overall acoustic environment and reverberation status of the functional spaces in the nursing home,but the acoustic environment in the active rooms and dining rooms is still to be improved compared with theliving rooms.According to the investigation of the light,heat and overall environment of nursing rooms,the elderly interviewed have a higher degree of satisfaction with the light and heat environment,and the overall environment can meet their needs for the living environment.The degree of satisfaction with lighting and ventilation in the four functional spaces is higher,and the degree of satisfaction with lighting is higher than that of ventilation.The factor analysis shows that respondents' subjective evaluation of the status of the functional spatial acoustic environment of the nursing home will affect their subjective assessment of the overall acoustic environment of the nursing home.Respondents' subjective assessments of the overall light environment and thermal environment have a strong correlation with those of the lighting and ventilation of the functional space of the nursing home.In the three physical environments of acoustic,light and thermal,the acoustic environment has the greatest impact on the subjective assessment of the elderly people in the nursing home.The correlation analysis of common factor scores and PTA of the elderly shows that the higher the PTA and more severe the hearing loss of the elderly will be,the weaker the ability to feel the reverberation in the room and the more speech communication ability will be affected by acoustic environment. |
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