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.

Contents

• THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
• PLANNING COMMITTEE FOR A WORKSHOP ON HEARING LOSS AND HEALTHY AGING
• FORUM ON AGING, DISABILITY, AND INDEPENDENCE
• Reviewers
• 1. Introduction, Background, and Overview of the Workshop
  • BACKGROUND
  • OVERVIEW OF THE WORKSHOP
  • ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKSHOP SUMMARY
• 2. Hearing Loss: Two Perspectives
  • LIVING WITH HEARING LOSS
  • HEARING TECHNOLOGIES FROM A CONSUMER PERSPECTIVE
• 3. The Connection Between Hearing Loss and Healthy Aging
  • THE CONSEQUENCES OF UNTREATED HEARING LOSS
  • THE IMPACT OF HEARING LOSS ON PHYSICAL FUNCTIONING
  • FUNCTIONAL RESERVES AND HEARING
  • AGING AND HEARING LOSS: WHY DOES IT MATTER
  • THE IMPACT OF HEARING LOSS ON COGNITION
  • PSYCHOSOCIAL IMPACTS
  • OTHER ISSUES
• 4. Current Approaches to Hearing Health Care Delivery
  • THE SPECTRUM OF HEARING IMPAIRMENT AND INTERVENTIONS
  • THE CURRENT U.S. HEARING HEALTH CARE MODEL
  • AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
• 5. Hearing Technologies
  • A TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
  • CURRENT FDA STANDARDS
  • WIRELESS STANDARDS
  • HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT: ROLE IN TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT AND USE
  • CONCLUSION
• 6. Innovative Models
  • THE COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKER MODEL
  • TELEAUDIOLOGY
  • THE PRIMARY CARE SETTING
  • SOCIAL ENTERPRISE BUSINESS MODELS
  • INCLUSIVE DESIGN
• 7. Contemporary Issues in Hearing Health Care
  • HEALTHY PEOPLE 2020
  • THE CHANGING HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
  • NIDCD RESEARCH WORKING GROUP ON ACCESSIBLE AND AFFORDABLE HEARING HEALTH CARE
  • CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
• 8. Collaborative Strategies for the Future
  • THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION
  • THE AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY
  • AARP
  • PARTICIPANTS' REFLECTIONS ON THE WORKSHOP
• References
• APPENDIXES
  • Appendix A Workshop Agenda
  • Appendix B Speaker Biographical Sketches

Rapporteurs: Tracy A. Lustig and Steve Olson.

This activity was supported by contracts between the National Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Doctors of Audiology; the American Academy of Audiology; the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery; American Geriatrics Society; the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association; Cochlear Americas; the European Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association; the Gerontological Society of America; the Hearing Industries Association; the Hearing Loss Association of America; Hi HealthInnovations; LeadingAge; MED-EL Corporation, USA; the National Institute on Aging (Contract No. HHSN26300038); the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging and National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (Contract No. HHSN26300048); The SCAN Foundation (Contract No. 12-004), Sound World Solutions; United HealthCare; the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (Contract No. ED-OSE-12-P-0066); and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (Contract No. VA268-12-P-0014). The views presented in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the activity.

Suggested citation:

IOM (Institute of Medicine) and NRC (National Research Council). 2014. Hearing loss and healthy aging: Workshop summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

NOTICE: The workshop that is the subject of this workshop summary was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.