Hearing Loss: The Silent Risk for Psychiatric Disorders in Late Life

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Key points

  • Hearing loss is a silent epidemic among older adults. Nearly 30 million Americans experience hearing loss, and the prevalence increases dramatically with age.

  • Hearing loss is associated with many psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and other psychoses, and cognitive impairment.

  • Psychiatrists are in an excellent position to identify hearing loss given that when they administer a mental status examination the older adult may expose the disorder through answers that

Epidemiology of hearing loss in later life

Determining the prevalence of hearing loss must not be based solely upon self-report. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that 1 in 4 US adults who report excellent-to-good hearing already experience hearing damage.3 Prevalence and incidence studies typically measure severity by the decibels (dB) that can be heard. For all ages, the normal person can hear sounds at less than 26 dB. Persons with mild hearing loss can hear sounds between 26 to 40 dB; those with moderate

Psychiatric disorders secondary to hearing loss

To gain a perspective on psychiatric problems associated with hearing loss, the clinician must have an appreciation of the problems faced by those with the impairment. Persons with hearing loss have difficulty following a conversation if there is background noise, such as in a restaurant. They become frustrated when trying to communicate with their families. Although they can hear speech, that speech may be muffled, because they can understand only portions of the conversation. This problem can

Summary

In general, hearing health care technology is at a point where a combination of opening the market to new products coupled with new and disruptive technologies may significantly change the options persons with hearing loss have available as well as decrease the stigma of seeking and using hearing assistive technologies and approaches to rehabilitation. Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals should be aware of this changing landscape and take advantage of their unique opportunity to

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  • Cited by (7)

    • Recent advancements in understanding the role of epigenetics in the auditory system

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      Citation Excerpt :

      Hearing loss is a critical medical and public health issue (Blazer, 2020; Punch et al., 2019; Mormer et al., 2017; Korver et al., 2017; Nirmalasari et al., 2017; Imam and Hannan, 2017).

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    This article originally appeared in Psychiatric Clinics, Volume 41, Issue 1, March 2018.

    Disclosures: The author chaired the National Academies Committee on Accessible and Affordable Hearing Health Care for Adults (2016). No other disclosures.

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