Our attitudes toward aging are shaped by countless cultural, societal, and personal factors. In some communities, aging is recognised as a positive and natural part of life, and older people are seen as uniquely worthy of respect and engagement. In other communities with a less optimistic view of aging, older people might find themselves with less access to environments or opportunities designed to accommodate their specific needs. Ultimately, whether and to what extent an individual’s self-perception of aging is largely negative or positive can have a direct impact on their own health as they get older.
In this article, we’ll examine the ways in which attitudes toward aging and attitudes toward hearing loss are intertwined, and explore how they fit into the same larger conversation about accessibility in healthcare. Finally, we’ll review how local healthcare providers can drive more positive outcomes for patients by encouraging better attitudes toward aging and hearing loss across their communities, and by offering more accessible hearing testing and care to community members of all ages.
Understanding the connections between aging and hearing loss
The link between a positive perception of aging and positive overall health outcomes is well-established. Studies have clearly shown that people with a positive mindset about getting older tend to report better physical and mental health outcomes than people with a negative perception of aging. One such study even found that individuals with more positive attitudes about aging tend to live, on average, 7.5 years longer than their more negatively-minded counterparts. When it comes to hearing performance, a similar link might exist: One study found that older adults (aged 70 to 96) with more negative feelings toward aging performed worse during hearing screening tests than adults of the same age who held a more positive outlook.
These outcomes might have to do with the fact that, as people age, their attitudes about getting older can play a significant role in whether and to what extent they proactively seek out healthcare. It’s not uncommon that older people fail to seek care out of fear: They may fear that they are a burden to their loved ones or to society, or they may fear losing their independence as a result of deteriorating health. In the case of hearing loss, these fears can be amplified by feelings of embarrassment or shame: Older adults with a negative attitude toward, or fear of aging, might feel that hearing loss is a symptom of their age, and may decide not to pursue care due to feeling self-conscious or insecure.
There are other, quantifiable connections between age and hearing loss that link these topics in a broader conversation: First, older adults experience hearing loss at a higher rate than any other age group. And compared to younger people, older adults are also at higher risk of experiencing certain life events, such as illness and the death of friends or family members, which are known to contribute to depression, anxiety, and social isolation – conditions which also frequently occur when an individual experiences unmanaged hearing loss. Taken together, this combination has the potential to become dangerous and create an increased risk of loneliness and other serious mental health conditions among adults of a certain age.
How community healthcare providers can shift attitudes towards aging and hearing loss
It’s critical that community healthcare providers do what they can to shift current conversations about aging and hearing loss alike, toward more positive, productive spaces. By taking meaningful steps in this direction, including actively educating your community about salient healthcare issues, you can foster well-informed, positive attitudes towards both topics within your communities.
But when it comes to the specific issue of meaningfully addressing unmanaged hearing loss in older adults, education isn’t enough. To most effectively combat this unique challenge, community healthcare providers must have an even more powerful tool at their disposal.
Accessibility – the ultimate tool for community healthcare providers
Traditionally, hearing tests have been relatively difficult to access. Patients must usually obtain a referral before seeing an audiologist, and appointments almost always happen in hospitals and speciality clinics. For elderly patients, the challenge of leaving the house (including driving and interacting with new people in unfamiliar environments) can be insurmountable, especially if they’re already struggling to communicate due to hearing loss.
But if community healthcare providers are able to offer older patients an alternative — one which eliminates the discomfort of traveling out of their community and creates a more psychologically safe end-to-end care experience — that can be a powerful tool for improving health outcomes among older residents.
AUDIMETROID is hearing screening technology designed for use by community healthcare providers. It’s a lightweight, purpose-built solution that drives uptake of hearing testing and care and supports better mental and physical health outcomes for patients. Not only can a hearing screening test with AUDIMETROID be delivered in any safe, quiet room, it can be administered by a member of staff without any formal training in audiology. And by reducing these barriers to care, AUDIMETROID makes actually seeking and receiving care a far more comfortable experience: One less fraught with stigma, and discomfort.
Ultimately, by creating more accessible, more streamlined opportunities for hearing testing, AUDIMETROID offers a revolutionary way for community healthcare providers to shift attitudes toward this critical area of healthcare and, most importantly, to offer more inclusive care to adults of any age.
Attitudes toward aging and hearing loss won’t shift overnight, but solutions like AUDIMETROID can help to normalize conversations about hearing loss – and make strides toward destigmatizing the condition – by establishing hearing testing as a normal part of the community healthcare experience.
To learn more about how AUDIMETROID can overcome barriers to uptake of hearing testing and care, you can explore this article.
And to learn more about AUDIMETROID, you can visit this web page.