Hearing Health Care For Adults

The loss of hearing - be it gradual or acute, mild or severe, present since birth or acquired in older age - can have significant effects on one's communication abilities, quality of life, social participation, and health. Despite this, many people with hearing loss do not seek or receive hearing health care. The reasons are numerous, complex, and often interconnected. For some, hearing health care is not affordable. For others, the appropriate services are difficult to access, or individuals do not know how or where to access them. Others may not want to deal with the stigma that they and society may associate with needing hearing health care and obtaining that care. Still others do not recognize they need hearing health care, as hearing loss is an invisible health condition that often worsens gradually over time. In the United States, an estimated 30 million individuals (12.7 percent of Americans ages 12 years or older) have hearing loss. Globally, hearing loss has been identified as the fifth leading cause of years lived with disability. Successful hearing health care enables individuals with hearing loss to have the freedom to communicate in their environments in ways that are culturally appropriate and that preserve their dignity and function. Hearing Health Care for Adults focuses on improving the accessibility and affordability of hearing health care for adults of all ages. This study examines the hearing health care system, with a focus on non-surgical technologies and services, and offers recommendations for improving access to, the affordability of, and the quality of hearing health care for adults of all ages.

Being able to communicate is a cornerstone of healthy aging. People need to make themselves understood and to understand others to remain cognitively and socially engaged with families, friends, and other individuals. When they are unable to communicate, people with hearing impairments can become socially isolated, and social isolation can be an important driver of morbidity and mortality in older adults. Despite the critical importance of communication, many older adults have hearing loss that interferes with their social interactions and enjoyment of life. People may turn up the volume on their televisions or stereos, miss words in a conversation, go to fewer public places where it is difficult to hear, or worry about missing an alarm or notification. In other cases, hearing loss is much more severe, and people may retreat into a hard-to-reach shell. Yet fewer than one in seven older Americans with hearing loss use hearing aids, despite rapidly advancing technologies and innovative approaches to hearing health care. In addition, there may not be an adequate number of professionals trained to address the growing need for hearing health care for older adults. Further, Medicare does not cover routine hearing exams, hearing aids, or exams for fitting hearing aids, which can be prohibitively expensive for many older adults. Hearing Loss and Healthy Aging is the summary of a workshop convened by the Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence in January 2014 on age-related hearing loss. Researchers, advocates, policy makers, entrepreneurs, regulators, and others discussed this pressing social and public health issue. This report examines the ways in which age-related hearing loss affects healthy aging, and how the spectrum of public and private stakeholders can work together to address hearing loss in older adults as a public health issue.

We would like to acknowledge VCCA2020-Organizer Jan-Willem Wasmann, who has acted as coordinator and has contributed to the preparation of the proposal for this Research Topic. Dr. Qinglin Meng is working on an audio project for Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. Dr. Jing Chen is working on research projects with Sonova AG. Dr. Fan-Gang Zeng owns stock in Axonics, Nurotron, Syntiant, Velox and Xsense. Dr. Dennis Barbour founded and owns equity in Bonauria. All other Topic Editor declare no conflicts of interest.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. ​This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.

Evidence based practice (EBP) has proponents in all areas of healthcare and was endorsed in a technical report in 2004 and a position statement in 2005 by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Despite this, there is no text on EBP with specific application to audiology. It is particularly important in audiology, where there are various interventions to assist people with hearing impairment and a growing body of research evidence that needs to be appraised by clinicians and researchers. This comprehensive book describes the principles of EBP as they apply to the evaluation of audiologic interventions in children and adults. The reader will learn the process of EBP, as well as gain knowledge on the evidence relating to specific interventions. Evidence Based Practice in Audiology is divided into four sections. The first section describes principles of EBP, including how to evaluate evidence and how to facilitate evidence based decisions with clients. The remaining three sections provide a discussion of the best available evidence about hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other interventions. These three sections contain chapters written by leading international authors who summarize the best available evidence, highlight where further evidence is needed, and recommend how further evidence should be collected and applied in the clinic. The book ends with an appendix that contains recommended measures for the collection of evidence about different audiologic interventions. Evidence Based Practice in Audiology is a highly valued resource for students, researchers, clinical audiologists, other health professionals and policy makers. For students, the book can be used for learning about research methods and about outcomes of interventions for children and adults with hearing impairment. For researchers, the book provides a useful summary of available research on important topics in habilitation and rehabilitation and may assist them to design future research studies. For clinical audiologists, the book can help them understand what evidence is and how this can be applied in clinical practice. Other health professionals who can benefit from this book include ENTs, pediatricians, geriatricians, GPs, nurses, and aged care workers. The book can also guide policy makers and third-party payers in their decisions about allocation of resources. The text is written with sufficient information for readers with different backgrounds and experience and careful attention has been paid to presenting complex information in an easy to understand format. Evidence Based Practice in Audiology is edited by two leading academics in research in audiologic interventions. These editors have a rich clinical experience working with children and adults with hearing impairment and with other health professionals

Completely revised and updated, Geriatric Audiology, Second Edition is a unique handbook that provides audiologists, speech language pathologists, and doctoral students in audiology with evidence-based, clinical guidance on evaluating and treating hearing loss in older adults. Focusing solely on geriatric audiology, this new edition contains the latest information on the demographics of aging as well as the biological, sociological, and psychological factors that affect geriatric hearing loss and its ramifications. Key features: Includes a new chapter designed to help audiologists and speech language pathologists teach health care professionals about hearing loss diagnosis and management Emphasizes patient-centered hearing health care Contains updated chapters on hearing loss, pure tone and speech findings, hearing aids, and audiologist rehabilitation and counseling for geriatric patients, giving readers comprehensive information on important areas in the specialty Based on Dr. Weinstein's extensive experience in geriatric audiology, this book is an invaluable resource for audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and others involved in the care of elderly patients with hearing, speech, language, voice problems, and other communicative disorders.

Hearing loss is a common chronic condition which is often poorly recognized but can have multiple negative impacts, not just on the lives of those directly affected, but also those living with them. People with impaired hearing may begin a long and uncertain journey involving a number of key stages, from emerging awareness and help-seeking, to diagnosis, adjustment, and self-evaluation. Based on a model of person-centered audiological rehabilitation, this book explains why it is important to understand both patients’ own experiences, and those of their communication partners, over time. It focuses particularly on the human dynamics of hearing loss, exploring the broader consequences of hearing loss for the individual, family members, and wider society. In particular the book: gives insight into the patients' and their communication partners’ experiences and perspectives through clear and telling first-hand narrative accounts; examines how people understand their own hearing loss, reflect on their experiences with hearing aids – both positive and negative – and evaluate treatment options; considers the changes needed to conversations in order to include all communication partners, whether with impaired hearing or not; and discusses consequences of hearing loss using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). With its explicit aim to increase awareness of the need to include the patient and close relatives in the process of rehabilitation, this new text makes an important contribution to further improve evidence-based practice in the field of audiological rehabilitation. An ideal text for audiology, ENT, and nursing students of all levels.

Hearing Instrument Technology for the Hearing Healthcare Professional, 2E brings together modern material for the highly specialized are of hearing instrument acousticians in hearing instrument technology. Beginning with an overview of hearing instrument technology from the beginning to the "digital" era, the text covers hearing instrument types and statistics on these instruments, hearing instrument measurements, transducers, acoustic modifications, hearing instrument functions, accessories, and troubleshooting, digital hearing instruments, and audiological background.