Self-Reported Dual Sensory Impairment and Subjective Cognitive Complaints Among Older Adults in the 2019 National Health Interview Survey

Purpose: Subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs) are associated with poor quality of life, important for clinical care planning and management, and may predict dementia diagnosis. Dual sensory impairment (DSI) is a risk factor for dementia, but whether DSI is associated with SCCs is unknown. We evaluated whether self-reported DSI is associated with SCCs.Method: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of 9,899 community-dwelling respondents aged 60+ years without dementia or depression in the 2019 National Health Interview Survey. Participants self-reported difficulty remember-ing or concentrating, seeing even when wearing corrective lenses, and hearing even when using a hearing aid. We defined SCCs and sensory impairment for each mode as reporting at least some difficulty. We categorized sensory impair-ment into no sensory impairment, vision impairment only, hearing impairment only, and DSI. We then estimated weighted prevalence ratios (PRs) of SCCs by impairment category.Results: After weighting (9,899 participants representing a weighted n = 59,261,749), 12% of participants reported vision impairment only, 19% reported hearing impairment only, and 7% reported DSI. Relative to no impairment, after adjustment for potential confounders, vision impairment (PR = 2.07; 95% confi-dence interval [CI] [1.79, 2.39]), hearing impairment (PR = 2.26; 95% CI [2.00, 2.55]), and DSI (PR = 3.21; 95% CI [2.83, 3.63]) were associated with an increased prevalence of SCCs.Conclusions: In this nationally representative survey of older Americans, DSI was associated with a threefold increased prevalence of SCCs. Although cross-sectional, these data underscore the importance of assessing multiple impair-ments as exposures when studying subjective cognition in older adults.Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21498711