The primary
goal of the Hearing in Later Life Working Group (HLL WG) of the International
Society of Audiology (ISA) is to connect and engage professionals in
ear and hearing care from across the globe to share, develop, and use
evidence about hearing in later life to promote healthy ageing in healthcare
practices and in social policy initiatives. To achieve this goal, it is
imperative that ear and hearing professionals and aging experts build new collaborations.
Click here to find out more about this working group.
Future webinars will take place on the following 2024 dates: April 18 / May 23 / June 13
1st Webinar: October 30, 2023
Hearing care and cognitive ageing: What we have learned from the ACHIEVE study so far
Associate Professor
Michelle Arnold / Professor
Kathy Pichora-Fuller / Professor
Natalie Phillips / Marilyn Reed
Over three decades ago, associations between sensory and cognitive aging were identified and hypothesis were proposed about possible explanations for the associations. In the intervening years, considerable evidence has emerged to confirm auditory-cognitive association, although the hypothetical mechanisms that may underpin the associations have not yet been proven. Importantly, in influential papers published in the Lancet (Livingston et al., 2017, 2020), hearing loss has been identified as one of several POTENTIALLY modifiable risk factors for dementia. Some promising evidence has indicated the possible benefits of hearing care for cognitive health; however, limitations in research designs have made it difficult to assess whether hearing care can actually modify risk for cognitive decline or dementia. Evidence based on randomized control trials (RCTs) has been long awaited. On July 18, 2023, the first results of the Aging and Cognitive Health Evaluation in Elders (ACHIEVE; registered at ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT03243422) RCT study were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International conference in Amsterdam and published in the Lancet (Lin et al. 2023). This important work has provided some answers to important questions about whether or not hearing care can actually modify cognitive health.
Lin, F. R., Pike, J. R., Albert, M. S., Arnold, M., Burgard, S., Chisolm, T., Couper, D., Deal, J. A., Goman, A. M., Glynn, N. W., Gmelin, T., Gravens-Mueller, L., Hayden, K. M., Huang, A. R., Knopman, D., Mitchell, C. M., Mosley, T., Pankow, J. S., Reed, N. S., … Coresh, J. (2023). Hearing intervention versus health education control to reduce cognitive decline in older adults with hearing loss in the USA (ACHIEVE): a multicentre, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet (British Edition). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01406-X
Livingston, G., Sommerlad, A., Orgeta, V., Costafreda, S. G., Huntley, J., Ames, D. et al. (2017). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care. The Lancet, 390(10113), 2673-2734. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31363-6
Livingston, G., Huntley, J., Sommerlad, A., Ames, D., Ballard, C., Banerjee, S. et al. (2020). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2020 report of the Lancet Commission. The Lancet, 396(10248), 413-446. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30367-6
2nd Webinar - Thursday
November 16, 2023
Hearing as a key capacity in integrated care for older people: New frontiers for audiology in inter-professional education to support working in primary care teams.
Dr Kelly Tremblay & Associate Professor Sheila Moodie. Moderated by Professor
Kathy Pichora-Fuller
There is increasing awareness that hearing loss in older adults may be associated with increased risks for physical (e.g., falls, mobility), psychological (e.g., depression, dementia), and social (e.g., loneliness, isolation) health issues. Furthermore, with increasing age, it is increasingly likely that older adults will experience multiple health issues, including sensory (e.g., hearing, vision), motor (e.g., mobility, falls), vitality (e.g., malnutrition, metabolic disorders, frailty) and psychological (cognitive and/or mental) health issues (e.g., Gaussens et al., 2023). The WHO (2019) published a report advocating for integrated care for older people (ICOPE). The report identified six key “intrinsic capacities”: hearing, vision, cognition, mental health, mobility and nutrition. It emphasizes that rehabilitation addressing these health capacities in an integrated fashion should be provided to support older adults in optimizing functioning in everyday life. Traditionally, ear and hearing care professionals have worked in relative isolation from other healthcare professionals. There is an imperative for us to stop thinking and working in silos and to begin to learn how hearing combines with other factors and to work in new types of inter-professional primary care teams. The shift to a team-based approach to primary care will call for the development of new curriculum and implementation science research to design and evaluate new practices. Globally, the International Society of Audiology is participating in the Primary Care Working Group of the WHO World Rehabilitation Alliance (https://www.who.int/initiatives/world-rehabilitation-alliance) with the aim of shaping these shifts to include ear and hearing care. The webinar will explore how integrated care for older people might be achieved in the context of new inter-professional primary care initiatives.
Gaussens, L., González-Bautista, E., Bonnefoy, M., Briand, M., Tavassoli, N.,De Souto Barreto, P., Rolland, Y., on behalf of the GEGN Group. (2023). Associations between vitality/nutrition and the other domains of intrinsic capacity based on data from the INSPIRE ICOPE-Care Program. Nutrients, 15, 1567. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15071567
WHO (World Health Organization). (2019). Integrated care for older people (ICOPE): guidance for person-centred assessment and pathways in primary care. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-FWC-ALC-19.1
The primary goal of the Hearing in Later Life Working Group (HLL WG) of the International Society of Audiology (ISA) is to connect and engage professionals in ear and hearing care from across the globe to share, develop, and use evidence about hearing in later life to promote healthy ageing in healthcare practices and in social policy initiatives. To achieve this goal, it is imperative that ear and hearing professionals and aging experts build new collaborations. In this webinar, Jane Barrett, Secretary General of the International Federation on Ageing (IFA), will provide an overview of the work being undertaken by the IFA with the UN and WHO and the priorities that she has been driving on the agenda for the world’s population ageing in the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing. Stefan Launer, Vice President Audiology and Health Innovation at Sonova AG and Vice-President of the International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology, will provide an overview of an evolving awareness of healthy aging priorities in the context of hearing healthcare. Following these overviews, Astrid Van Wieringen, Vice-President of the International Society of Audiology, will engage Jane and Stefan in a discussion to explore how ISA and its members can build global collaborations to ensure that hearing in later life becomes part of practices and policies to promote healthy aging. All who are interested in this topic are invited to be part of the conversation and to join the HLL WG to explore how to build strong new collaborations.
Vice President Audiology and Health
Innovation, Sonova AG
Adjunct Professor University of Queensland, Brisbane Vice-President, International
Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology
Stefan studied Physics at the University of Würzburg in Germany and conducted a PhD thesis in Hearing Science and Psychoacoustics at the Universities of Göttingen and Oldenburg. He joined Phonak in 1995 as a member of the research team. During his career at Phonak, now Sonova, Stefan managed various teams including Audiological Engineering, Digital Signal Processing & Microelectronics and Acoustic Design. In his current role, he leads the Audiology and Health Innovation program within the Sonova organization. Stefan Launer also holds an Adjunct Professorship in Audiology & Hearing Instrument technology at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. He is the Vice-President of the International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology and has been a leader in fostering new practices to connect hearing well to aging well.
International Federation on Ageing:
Videos of conversations prepared for the “Shaping the Future of Ageing” IFA conference session on Hearing in Later Life held in Bangkok in June 2023 (Pichora-Fuller & Stuen; Nieman & Swanger; McMahon & Brasher): McMahan and Swanger: Click here to view ; Nieman and Brasher: Click here to view; Pichora-Fuller and Stuen: Click here to view
Click Here to visit the IFA website
Click here to view Global Cafe videos
Decade of Healthy Aging: Click here to visit the website
Global Report on Ageism: Click here to view report
Bertram, K., & Pai, M. (2023). Single-issue
advocacy in global health: Possibilities and perils. Click here to read the paper.
Synergies between hearing and vision care for older adults
Dr. Olga Overbury / Dr. Sarah Granberg / Dr. Walter Wittich / Dr. Cynthia Stuen
Professor Kathy Pichora-Fuller (moderator)
Click here to watch the recording
Olga Overbury, Ph.D. has dedicated her career to university teaching, research, and international networking in the area of Visual Impairment & Rehabilitation. She received her doctorate in Experimental Psychology from Concordia University and, subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Western Blind Rehabilitation Center of the Veterans Affairs Department in Palo Alto, California. Her research program has included the sensory, perceptual, and psychosocial aspects of visual impairment. She retired in June, 2023, as Professor at the School of Optometry, Université de Montréal, and Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at McGill University where she was the founding director of the McGill Low Vision Clinic. Throughout her career she taught undergraduate psychology students, ophthalmology residents, graduate students preparing for careers in vision rehabilitation, as well as Masters and doctoral students investigating visual mechanisms, perceptual strategies, and psychosocial implications involved in vision loss. The main focus of both her teaching and research activities has been aging and vision impairment. She was the President of the International Society for Low Vision Research & Rehabilitation (ISLRR) from 2014 - 2022. She has received a number of awards recognizing her teaching and research, including the Envision Award in Low Vision Research as well as the AER-Division VII Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Low Vision.
WHO Vision Screening App: https://www.who.int/teams/noncommunicable-diseases/sensory-functions-disability-and-rehabilitation/whoeyes
WHO on Eye care, vision impairment and blindness : https://www.who.int/health-topics/blindness-and-vision-loss#tab=tab_1
WHO World Report on Vision: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241516570
Granberg, S., & Skagerstrand, Å. (2022). Enhancing Person-Centered Audiologic Rehabilitation: Exploring the Use of an Interview Tool Based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health Core Sets for Hearing Loss. Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences, 3, 945464–945464. https://doi.org/10.3389/fresc.2022.945464
Click here to download the Lighthouse International Color Contrast Guideline
Click here to download the Print Legibility Guideline
Click here to download the Dutch Functional Definition of Deafblindness – English translation
Click here to download and read the article: Wittich, W., Granberg, S., Wahlqvist, M., Pichora-Fuller, M. K., & Mäki-Torkko, E. (2021). Device abandonment in deafblindness: a scoping review of the intersection of functionality and usability through the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health lens. BMJ Open, 11(1), e044873-
Click here to download the slide on How to link hearing care and vision care?
Useful links
First report https://wfdb.eu/wfdb-report-2018/
Second report from the World Federation of the Deafblind
https://wfdb.eu/wfdb-report-2022/
Visit Global Alliance for Rights of Older People to sign petition I referenced: www.globalrightsofolderpeople.org
Dr. Sharon Curhan, MD, ScM is a physician and epidemiologist in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School, ScM in Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health, and ScB in Neuroscience from Brown University. As a clinical researcher in chronic disease epidemiology and prevention, her research focuses on the identification of risk factors for acquired hearing loss and tinnitus in several large ongoing cohort studies involving over 250,000 participants, the Nurses’ Health Studies, the Growing Up Today Study, and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. Along with her husband, Gary Curhan MD, ScD, she initiated the Conservation of Hearing Study (CHEARS; click here to examine ear and hearing disorders in these cohorts. Her research sheds light on growing evidence that a complex array of health, diet, lifestyle, genetic and environmental exposures across the lifespan contributes to an accumulation of biologic changes throughout the lifetime and illustrates how the integration of different data types, including from the genome, metabolome, proteome, microbiome and exposome, enable a more holistically examination of factors that influence auditory health, connect genotype to phenotype, lead to discovery of shared or distinct mechanisms, and inform development of personalized hearing healthcare. She was a founding editor of the Ear and Hearing Epidemiology of Auditory and Vestibular Disorders section and is associate editor of the JARO epidemiology section. As a member of the World Health Organization expert group, she helped develop the WHO Ear and Hearing Survey Handbook and serves on the NIOSH NORA Hearing Loss Prevention Cross Sector Council and the Noise Hazard Recognition Workgroup. Her research also encompasses several areas of neurocognitive and neurodegenerative disease and the epidemiology of herpes zoster (“shingles”). She is Co-Director of the Channing Division of Network Medicine Healthy Aging and Longevity Consortium, a multi-disciplinary collaboration of investigators, clinicians and data scientists. Dr. Curhan is the proud parent of a son with severe SNHL and an advocate for hearing health.
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