“…The cooccurrence of hearing loss (HL) and cognitive decline is a common phenomenon in older adults, frequently observed in clinical practice ( Shen et al, 2020 ). Significantly, HL is associated with accelerated cognitive decline in this demographic ( Conceição Santos de Oliveira et al, 2023 ; Irace et al, 2022 ; Lau et al, 2022 ; Lin et al, 2013 ; Loughrey et al, 2018 ; Taljaard et al, 2016 ; Uchida et al, 2019 ). Importantly, both conditions adversely affect speech understanding.…”