Hearing Assessment and Rehabilitation for People Living With Dementia.
Piers Dawes, Jenna Littlejohn, Anthea Bott and 4 others
PMID 34966160WHAT IT FOUND
Adapt the clinic, the appointment, and the test to the person.
Hearing aids alone often fail; combine them with communication training for carers, environmental changes, and personal amplifiers. Screen cognition cautiously and only with referral pathways in place.
Key findings
01Standard behavioral hearing tests often fail in dementia care settings, but adapted assessments and objective measures like DPOAEs can identify hearing impairment in this population.
02Hearing aids are not sufficient for many people with dementia; effective intervention requires a holistic approach including personal amplifiers, communication training for carers, and environmental modifications.
03Cognitive screening in audiology clinics is fraught with difficulty because hearing loss confounds test results, and professionals often lack the training to interpret them or the pathways to act on them.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This is a guidance paper, not a systematic review or trial, so it cannot provide effect sizes or prove that these recommendations work. The evidence base for hearing interventions in dementia is described as limited and low-to-moderate quality. The paper focuses on hearing care professionals (audiologists, otolaryngologists) and may not fully address the specific scope of practice for PTs or OTs outside of audiology settings.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest were reported in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that cognitive screening tools can be used routinely in your clinic to diagnose dementia. Hearing impairment confounds these tests, causing false positives, and the paper states that screening is often not feasible or appropriate without specific training and clear referral pathways.