MM404 - Auditory Wellness: How Audiologists and Persons with Hearing Loss Can Assess Auditory Well-Being

Abstract:
Well-being is a multi-faceted phenomenon which entails having the functional ability to be and to do what one values throughout life. Auditory wellness and the ability to communicate effectively are integral to well-being and to healthy aging. Audiologists have an essential role to play in helping older adults remain engaged and socially connected and the time is now for us to leverage the many disruptions in hearing health-care and promote our role in this connection. Identification of persons with compromised auditory wellness is a first step.

Summary:
Audiologists should target their hearing health care activities to measurement and optimization of auditory wellness so that older adults remain socially connected. It is imperative that we measure auditory wellness at baseline and at each follow up visit so that we can introduce interventions at the appropriate time of the hearing loss journey. Having our patients self-evaluate their auditory wellness is essential to self management which can be an inducement to purchasing hearing health care services early in the hearing loss journey.

Measuring auditory wellness measures will ensure that the needs of persons with hidden hearing loss and persons with documented hearing loss will be addressed. Auditory wellness data should be shared with primary care provider to help physicians appreciate the connection between hearing status, auditory wellness and well-being. Understanding the sensitivity of auditory wellness measures and the connection to social engagement may induce patients to pursue some form of auditory intervention earlier than is traditional. We will discuss how to measure auditory wellness, applicability to OTC hearing aid use; hearing aid uptake; CI candidacy and residual disability. The categories of auditory wellness and recommendations regarding communication strategies and technological needs based on wellness status will be discussed.