Central Auditory Processing Tests as Diagnostic Tools for the Early Identification of Elderly Individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a disorder that usually occurs in the elderly, leading to dementia in some progressive cases. The purpose of this study is to examine the utility of central auditory processing tests as early diagnostic tools for identifying the elderly with MCI. This study was conducted on 20 elderly patients with MCI and 20 healthy matched peers. The speech perception ability in a quiet environment and in the presence of background noise and also temporal resolution were assessed by using Speech Perception in Noise (SPIN) and Gap in Noise (GIN) tests, respectively. The results indicated that the ability to understand speech in a quiet environment did not differ significantly between the two groups. However, SPIN at the three signal-tonoise ratios and the temporal resolution scores were significantly different between the two groups (p