Prevalence and Characteristics of Veterans with Severe Hearing Loss: A Descriptive Study.
David R Friedmann, Andrew Nicholson, Colleen O'Brien-Russo and 2 others
PMID 39113646WHAT IT FOUND
Among 137,500 Veterans with severe hearing loss, nearly 40% had poor speech recognition scores.
Hearing aid benefit varies widely in this group, so clinicians should verify outcomes with amplification rather than assuming audibility alone restores understanding.
Key findings
0139.6% of Veterans with bilateral severe hearing loss also had word recognition scores below 50%.
02Self-reported hearing difficulty increased with measured hearing loss severity, but with considerable variability.
03Speech recognition scores showed wide variability across all levels of hearing loss severity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is descriptive and cannot determine causality or predict individual aided outcomes. Aided speech recognition scores were not routinely available in the repository, so the analysis relies on unaided word recognition scores as a proxy for potential hearing aid benefit. Missing word recognition data were more common in those with worse hearing, which may bias estimates of speech ability in the most severely impaired. The sample is drawn entirely from the VA system, which may not represent hearing loss prevalence or characteristics in the general population.
Declared interests
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The authors declared no other conflicts of interest. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States government.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a patient with severe hearing loss will understand speech well if they have hearing aids. The study shows that nearly 40% of Veterans with severe hearing loss had poor word recognition scores, and hearing aid benefit varies widely. Unaided speech scores are a better indicator of potential difficulty than pure tone thresholds alone.