Hearing Care for Older Adults: Beyond the Audiology Clinic

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of hearing health care beyond the clinic for older people with impaired hearing. Method: This article emphasizes factors affecting the success of audiologic rehabilitation for older people and describes practical clinical and community-based strategies for promoting successful hearing health care. Results: Older people are not always aware of the extent of their hearing loss, may not always expect to benefit from using a hearing aid, and often have low self-efficacy for managing to learn to use hearing aids. Increased knowledge and support from other health professionals, family caregivers, and significant others could optimize older peoples' participation in everyday activities. Conclusion: Further work is needed to develop new interventions for older people with impaired hearing and to increase collaboration with general practitioners as well as other health care professionals.