Hearing loss in former prisoners of war of the Japanese.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To describe the prevalence, degree, and types of hearing loss present in a group of older American veterans who had been prisoners of war of the Japanese. DESIGN: A descriptive study. SETTING: A Veterans Affairs university hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Seventy-five male veterans, mean age 68 (+/- 3.6) years. INTERVENTIONS: Hearing aids were prescribed for eight veterans. MEASUREMENTS Subjects were examined, and pure tone air and bone conduction, speech reception threshold, and speech discrimination were determined. Results were compared with age- and sex-matched controls from the largest recent American population study of hearing loss. RESULTS: 95% of subjects had been imprisoned longer than 33 months. Starvation conditions (100%), head trauma (85%), and trauma-related loss of consciousness (23%) were commonly reported. A total of 73% complained of hearing loss, and 29% (22/75) dated its onset to captivity. Most of those with the worst losses in hearing and speech discrimination were found in this subgroup. When the entire group was compared with published age- and sex-matched controls from the Framingham Study, no significant differences were found. CONCLUSIONS: We advocate screening examinations and long-term follow-up of populations with similar histories of starvation, head trauma, and torture.