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Study: Elderly Hearing Loss Often Overlooked

Condition Can Lead To Depression, Isolation

TheKCRAChannel.com April 15, 2003

Many older people have trouble hearing, and many people -- including doctors -- wrongly consider hearing loss an inevitable part of aging.

However, new research shows that even though the condition is often treatable, hearing loss in elderly patients is often overlooked by doctors.

Hearing loss is the third most prevalent chronic condition in older Americans, after hypertension and arthritis. Up to 40 percent of people over age 65 are hearing impaired, and more than 80 percent of people over age 85 have hearing loss.

And the effects aren't just physical.

"People with hearing loss have twice as high of rates of depression," said Dr. Bevan Yueh, a researcher at Veterans Affairs-Puget Sound Health Care System at the University of Washington. "They're severely socially isolated and a lot of them have substantial loss of self-esteem."

But many don't realize it.

"A lot of older Americans who have hearing loss tend to blame their inability to understand conversation on their spouse's inability to speak loudly enough," Yueh said. "I think people need to recognize that they may have hearing loss, it's a gradual process."

Yueh's team reviewed nearly 1,600 articles between 1985 and 2001 about hearing-loss tests and whether primary care doctors should regularly screen their older patients for hearing loss. The results appear in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The researchers found that even though hearing loss is strongly linked to depression and decreased quality of life, fewer than 10 percent of internists offer routine testing to older patients.

The most common cause of deafness in older adults is nerve damage, which is not reversible. It can be substantially improved with hearing aids and sometimes surgery.

But the researchers also found that about one-third of elderly hearing-loss cases are caused by things like impacted ear wax or an ear infection, and can be treated by a primary care doctor.

But the first step is screening. The researchers recommend a screening with an audioscope, which emits tones that the patient tries to identify. A simple questionnaire can also help people recognize how hearing loss may be affecting their lives.

Steve Wilber recently had his hearing tested because he's had trouble hearing the television at home.

Wilber said he knows why some older people resist hearing screening.

"I think a lot of people are just stubborn and not wanting to deal with the problem," he said.

But dealing with the problem can mean better quality of life, Yueh said. Hearing screening should be part of the primary care visit. Yueh said he's now conducting a study to determine what kinds of treatments screening can lead to, and how those treatments affect a patient's quality of life.