Hearing in Later Life Working Group (HLL WG)

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Hearing in Later Life Working Group (HLL WG)

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: May 23 / June 13

Recordings

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

Click here to watch the recording

Background to 1st webinar

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.

Presenters: 1st webinar
Associate Professor Michelle Arnold

Michelle Arnold is currently an associate professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and a director of the Auditory Rehabilitation and Clinical Trials laboratory. Dr. Arnold holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Aging Sciences, with a concentration in health policy and practice, as well as a clinical doctorate degree in audiology. In addition, Dr. Arnold is an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association certified audiologist with license to practice in the state of Florida. Her research focuses on hearing health policy and aging, hearing health care access and utilization, and hearing loss and cognition. Dr. Arnold was integral in the study design of the hearing rehabilitation program tested in the ACHIEVE study.
Professor Kathy Pichora-Fuller

Professor Emerita (Psychology, U of T) and Adjunct Professor (Gerontology, SFU). For over three decades, she has translated her research on auditory and cognitive aging to address the rehabilitative needs of adults with age-related hearing and cognitive impairments, with a more recent focus on social engagement and healthy aging, including promoting brain health.
 
Professor Natalie Phillips

Professor in the Department of Psychology at Concordia University in Montreal, holds the Concordia University Research Chair (Tier 1) in Sensory-Cognitive Health in Aging and Dementia. She is a licensed clinical neuropsychologist and teaches in the area of human clinical neuropsychology. Dr. Phillips studies the neuropsychology of healthy aging and Alzheimer disease. Dr. Phillips attended the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Amsterdam on July 18th, when Dr. Lin and his colleagues presented the ACHIEVE study and the results we are discussing today.
Marilyn Reed

“Marilyn Reed who is a Practice Advisor for audiology at Baycrest Health Sciences. She obtained her Master’s degree in Audiology from the University of Southampton, England in 1976 and has since worked in Canada in a variety of clinical settings, with a focus on hearing rehabilitation in older adults. She has been with Baycrest Health Sciences in Toronto for 25 years as a clinician and clinical researcher in the area of hearing and cognition. Her recent projects include hearing screening in Memory Clinics and evaluating HEARS, a community-based hearing rehabilitation program for older adults in Toronto and New Brunswick.”

References: 1st webinar

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

Click here to watch the recording

Background to 2nd webinar

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. 

Presenters: 2nd webinar
Dr Kelly Tremblay

Dr. Kelly Tremblay, PhD FAAA, is an audiologist and neuroscientist who specializes in healthy aging. As a recently retired Professor, her research focussed on understanding the time course of aging and how to capitalize on the brain's plasticity for the purpose of informing communication rehabilitation. The application of this knowledge led to her co-authoring the new World Health Organization (WHO's) guidelines on community-level interventions in integrated care (ICOPE) and contributing to the World Report on Ageing and Health and the World Report on Hearing. She currently holds multiple appointments, providing instruction to students as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Communication Disorders, at Dalhousie University, NS, Canada and Salus University, Osborne College of Audiology, in Elkins Park, PA. USA.
Associate Professor Sheila Moodie

Sheila Moodie is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Faculty of Health Sciences at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada. She is also an Associate Member of The National Centre for Audiology. Along with colleagues in the School of Occupational Therapy and School of Physical Therapy at Western University they have developed an interprofessional first year graduate course bringing students in four professions (Audiology, Speech-language Pathology, Occupational Therapy, and Physical Therapy) together. She is also leading a team to develop curriculum for a Canada-wide project called “Team Primary Care”.

References: 2nd webinar

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


3rd Webinar 14 December 2023

Hearing Healthcare and Healthy Aging: 

The Imperative to Build Collaborations

Special Guests: Jane Barratt / Stefan Launer / 

Discussant: Astrid Van Wieringen

Moderator: Kathy Pichora- Fuller

Click here to watch the recording

Background to 3rd webinar

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.

Presenters: 3rd webinar
Dr Jane Barratt

Dr. Jane Barratt is the Secretary General, International Federation on Ageing (IFA) an international NGO with general consultative status at the United Nations and its agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO). Her leadership drives the agenda for the world’s population ageing within the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing. Among her many current positions Jane is a Member, WHO World Hearing Forum, Vision Academy, Director, Baycrest Health Sciences, Co-Chair, Baycrest Academy, Associate Scientist, Sinai Health System, Member, Co-Chair Vaccine Virtual Days 2024, Member of the Immunisation For All Ages (IFAA) initiative, WFPHA International Council for Adult Immunisation Taskforce, CSO Representative, WHO COVAX Pillar “vaccine strategy,” Member, IA2030 Strategic Priority Life course and Integration Working Group and Member of the European Interdisciplinary Council on Ageing Assembly.    
Stefan Launer, PhD

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.

Resources: 3rd webinar

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.

4th Webinar: 25 January 2024

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

Background to 4th webinar

This webinar will explore the synergies between hearing and vision care for older adults. Hearing and vision loss are highly prevalent disabilities in aging and they often co-occur. By the time people are in their 80s, about half will have at least a mild impairment in both sensory modalities. Hearing loss alone and vision loss alone are risk factors for other age-related declines in physical, psychological and social health. Dual sensory loss presents unique challenges to everyday functioning and further increases risks of other age-related declines. People who live with hearing loss use vision to compensate in everyday functioning (e.g., by speechreading). Conversely, people who live with vision loss can compensate by using auditory cues (e.g., for localization and navigation). Hearing aids do not correct hearing to normal and some types of age-related vision loss are not correctable with glasses. Rehabilitation should consider dual sensory abilities and how both senses play a role in optimal functioning achieved through behaviour change, technology use, and environmental modifications. Rehabilitation that takes dual sensory strengths and weaknesses into consideration will support healthy aging and communication accessibility in age-friendly communities. The panel includes experts in audiologic rehabilitation, (low-)vision rehabilitation, dual sensory loss, health professional education, dual sensory and aging research, and health and social policy reform. These experts will suggest how audiologists can include vision in rehabilitation planning and service delivery and how inter-professional teams may be key to implementing person-centered integrated care for older people (ICOPE: see HLL webinar #2 from October 2023 on the WHO ICOPE). The panel will also discuss ideas about the future of health professional education and healthcare practices to foster inter-professional primary care teams and the opportunities to change health and social policies in the Decade of Healthy Aging.

Presenters: 4th webinar

Dr.Olga Overbury


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.

Dr.Sarah Granberg


Sarah Granberg, PhD, and Reg. Audiologist, holds a position as a senior lecturer and researcher at Örebro University and at the Audiological Research Center, University Hospital in Örebro, Sweden. She obtained her PhD training in the Swedish Institute for Disability Research (Örebro University). Her research concerns hearing loss in the working life, health and quality of life, audiological rehabilitation of adults with severe hearing loss, dual-sensory loss (DSL), and research within the area of the World Health Organization (WHO) International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Sarah Granberg’s thesis "Functioning and Disability in adults with hearing loss: The preparatory studies in the ICF Core sets for Hearing loss project" received in 2015 the Arnbrink Award. The award was granted by the Svenska Audiologiska Sällskapet and Gunnar Arnbrinks Stiftelse. Sarah Granberg teaches foremost in the areas of adult audiological rehabilitation, health, ICF, Evidence-based-Practice (EBP), and various research methodologies. She has a special interest in Person-Centred Audiological Rehabilitation (PCAR) and how the Swedish hearing health care can develop into this course. Furthermore, Sarah has a close collaboration with the Swedish Association of Hard of Hearing and frequently holds popular-scientific talks on different matters related to the target groups of her research. In addition to many publications in journals such as the International Journal of Audiology, whe has also given several popular-scientific interviews in both radio and in different magazines.
 

Dr. Walter Wittich

Walter Wittich, PhD is an Associate Professor at the School of Optometry at the Université de Montréal, in Quebec, Canada. Originally from Germany, Dr. Wittich completed a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Psychology (Concordia University in Montreal) and a PhD in Visual Neuroscience (McGill University in Montreal). He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in audiology under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Gagné at the Centre de recherche of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal. He is the co-leader of the Sensory-Cognitive team of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging. His research focuses on the rehabilitation of older adults with combined vision and hearing loss. His research domains include basic sensory science, as well as medical, psychosocial, and rehabilitation approaches to sensory loss. He is the inaugural chair of the Deafblind International Research Network, the 2020 recipient of the Canadian Helen Keller Centre 10th Annual JT Award, is a Fellow of both the American Academy of Optometry, and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, and is Quebec’s first Certified Low Vision Therapist.

Dr.Cynthia Stuen


Cynthia Stuen, PhD is the Main Representative to the United Nations on behalf of the International Federation on Ageing and she also serves on its Board of Directors. Dr. Stuen received her Bachelor’s Degree from Valparaiso University, her Master’s Degree from the University of Chicago and her doctorate from Columbia University School of Social Work. She is the immediate Past Chair of the NGO Committee on Ageing at the UN and active in advocacy for the protection of the human rights of older persons with a special interest in older women. She is active in monitoring of inclusion of older persons in the UN’s Agenda 2030 and support of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing. Her professional career of over 40 years as a gerontological social worker has focused on policy, planning and administration to improve the lives of older persons and recognize the lifelong inequities endured. Serving in various capacities at Lighthouse International during her 24-year tenure, she was Director of its National Center for Vision and Aging developing public and professional education on age-related vision and hearing loss for older persons. Her last position was as Senior Vice President, Chief Professional Affairs Officer that involved advocating for policies to support older sensory impaired persons at the national, state and local level while also maintaining involvement and education in international environments to preserve sight and prevent excess disability. Her numerous publications, presentations and research endeavours cover topics of age-related sensory loss, evidence-based electronic records, access to environments for older adults with impaired vision and contributions older persons make to society. Dr. Stuen is a past Chair of the American Society on Aging. She is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the NY Academy of Medicine. Her entire professional career has been in the field of aging.

Resources: 4th webinar

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  

https://www.who.int/teams/noncommunicable-diseases/sensory-functions-disability-and-rehabilitation/whoeyes

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



5th Webinar: 29 February 2024

Intersections of Hearing with Mobility, Balance and Falls in Older Adults

Dr. Jennifer Campos / Assistant Professor Kristal Riska / Professor Kathy Pichora-Fuller


Click here to watch the recording 

Background to 5th webinar

This webinar will explore the intersections between auditory aging and mobility, balance and falls in older adults. The auditory and vestibular systems are anatomical neighbours and many disorders affect both systems. Functionally, balance depends on multiple sensory systems, including the visual system as well as the auditory and vestibular systems, as well as cognition. Having one age-related sensory decline increases the likelihood that an older adult will have other age-related sensory declines. Combined sensory declines alter the ability of the individuals to integrate information across the senses and how they may use one sense to compensate for another. Furthermore, sensory losses may each degrade information such that the cognitive processing of information during everyday functioning is challenged. In particular, there may be functional challenges for older adults when they are multi-tasking. Mobility, whether walking or driving, involves multi-tasking and the coordination of multiple senses. Older adults with hearing loss are at increased risk when driving and they are at increased risk for falls. Use of hearing devices may restore cues that are useful for mobility. In addition, the functional needs of those who have age-related auditory declines may be addressed more effectively if rehabilitation considers the how multiple senses and cognition intersect in everyday life. These experts will suggest how audiologists can include considerations of mobility, balance and falls risk in rehabilitation planning and delivery. They will also discuss how hearing is included in inter-professional guidelines for managing these healthcare needs of older adults with implementing person-centered integrated care for older people (ICOPE: see HLL webinar #2 from October 2023 on the WHO ICOPE). Finally, the panel will also touch on ideas about the future of health professional education and healthcare practices to foster inter-professional primary care teams and the opportunities to change health and social policies in the Decade of Healthy Aging.

Presenters: 5th webinar

Dr. Jennifer Campos

Dr. Campos is a Canada Research Chair (II), Associate Director-Academic, and Senior Scientist at KITE-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Network. She is also an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto and the national Associate Scientific Director of AGE WELL, Canada's aging and technology network. Her own research focuses on understanding how age-related changes to sensory abilities (e.g., vision, hearing, vestibular) affect safe mobility (walking, driving) and brain health. https://kite-uhn.com/scientist/jennifer-campos

Ass Prof Kristal Riska


Kristal Riska, AuD, PhD is an Assistant Professor and Director of Residency Research in the Department of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Riska's research program’s overarching goals are to improve the diagnosis and management of patient’s dizziness, falls, and vestibular disorders. Her current research focuses of understanding the complex relation between hearing loss and falls. Specifically, her work is focused on understanding the potential mediating role of unrecognized vestibular loss, cognitive function, and psychosocial factors play on the association.   https://headnecksurgery.duke.edu/profile/kristal-mills-riska 

Resources: 5th webinar

Montero-Odasso, M., van der Velde, N., Martin, F. C., Petrovic, M., Tan, M. P., Ryg, J., Aguilar-Navarro, S., Alexander, N. B., Becker, C., Blain, H., Bourke, R., Cameron, I. D., Camicioli, R., Clemson, L., Close, J., Delbaere, K., Duan, L., Duque, G., Dyer, S. M., Freiberger, E., … Task Force on Global Guidelines for Falls in Older Adults (2022). World guidelines for falls prevention and management for older adults: a global initiative. Age and ageing, 51(9), afac205. https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afac205
Click here to read and download the full article.

6th Webinar: 28 March 2024
Intersections of Hearing with Nutrition in Older Adults
Dr. Sharon Curhan / Dr. Isabelle Giroux / Professor Kathy Pichora-Fuller

Click here to watch the recording

Background to 6th webinar

This webinar will explore the intersections between auditory aging and nutrition in older adults. The WHO guidance on Integrated Care in Older Adults (ICOPE: see HLL webinar #2 from October 2023 on the WHO ICOPE) identifies six key capacities: hearing, vision, mobility, cognition, mental health and vitality . Vitality includes nutrition, as well as metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease and frailty. Previous Hearing in Later Life (HLL) webinars have considered how hearing loss in older adults may be connected to cognition, vision and mobility. While these connections may not be too surprising to most audiologists, it may be less obvious that there are connections between hearing and nutrition. Indeed, nutrition-related factors (e.g., malnutrition, dietary intake, obesity, diabetes) may have direct and indirect connections to all six of the ICOPE key capacities. Nutrition is a factor that may contribute to hearing loss and to the other ICOPE key capacities that affect the functioning of older people living with hearing loss. The webinar on intersections of hearing with nutrition will feature two expert presenters, one who is a dietitian and health professional educator and the other who is an MD and epidemiologist researching how factors such as diet are related to hearing loss. The two guest experts from different health professions will exchange information and explore the intersections of hearing and nutrition in older adults. Suggestions will be discussed for how a better understanding of nutrition could inform audiologists in planning and delivering rehabilitation services in the context of integrated primary care teams. Finally, the panel will touch on ideas about the future of health professional education and healthcare practices to foster integrated person-centered care for older adults and opportunities to change health and social policies in the Decade of Healthy Aging.  

Presenters: 6th webinar
Dr. Sharon Curhan

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.

Dr. Isabelle Giroux

Dr. Isabelle Giroux, Ph.D., is a Registered Dietitian (R.D.) and a Professional Home Economist (P.H.Ec.). She is a Full Professor of nutrition and the Director of the School of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She was previously Vice-Dean Academic (student and professional affairs) at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Ottawa (2019-2021). She has also been Assistant Director – Undergraduate Studies of the School of Nutrition Sciences (2015-2019). She is actively involved in professional affairs as a dietetic educator (since 2000), dietetic program evaluator (since 2008), member of the Partnership for Dietetic Education and Practice (PDEP) of Canada Accreditation Standards Development Working Group (2012-2014), Chair of the French Network of Dietitians of Ontario and Canada (2007-2015), and member of the PDEP Steering Committee as a dietetic educators’ representative 2015-2021 (and co-chair 2016-2018, 2020-2021).  She is a specialist of nutritional assessment and evaluation of cardiometabolic health, as well as the development of effective nutritional education approaches and intervention programs. She is a researcher of the Institut du Savoir Montfort where her work is centered on quality interdisciplinary care for clients, supporting the education of health professionals, and interdisciplinary research in the prevention and management of obesity and diabetes across the lifecycle, including at risk populations. She conducts research on the role of dietitians in care teams and research to evaluate the impact of experiential learning on the development of interprofessional competencies. She is a researcher of the GReFoPS (Groupe de recherche sur la formation et les pratiques en santé et en service social en contexte francophone minoritaire) of the University of Ottawa.
 

7th Webinar 18 April 2024


Intersections of Hearing with Mental Health in Older Adults

Danielle Powell, Justin S. Golub, Rebecca Bennett, Ulrike Lemke, Kathy Pichora-Fuller


Click here to watch the recording

Background: 7th webinar

This webinar will explore the intersections between auditory aging and mental health in older adults. The WHO guidance on Integrated Care in Older Adults (ICOPE: see HLL webinar #2 from October 2023 on the WHO ICOPE) identifies six key capacities: hearing, vision, mobility, cognition, mental health, and vitality. Mental health includes but is not limited to depression and mood disorders. Previous Hearing in Later Life webinars have considered how hearing loss in older adults may be connected to cognition, vision, mobility, and nutrition. Most audiologists recognize that both hearing loss and mental health problems may have implications for social isolation and loneliness. Nevertheless, audiologists do not usually have much experience working with the intersections of hearing and mental health issues or collaborating in inter-professional teams with experts in mental health. Importantly, mental health is a factor that may combine with hearing loss and connect to other key capacities (cognition, vision, mobility, and vitality/nutrition) that affect the functioning of older people living with hearing loss. Suggestions will be discussed for how a better understanding of mental health could inform audiologists in rehabilitation planning and delivery in the context of integrated inter-professional teams, especially in the context of primary care. Finally, the panel will touch on ideas about the future of health professional education and healthcare practices to foster inter-professional primary care teams and the opportunities to change health and social policies in the Decade of Healthy Aging.

Presenters: 7th webinar

Danielle Powell

Danielle Powell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland in the USA. She is a dual-trained Audiologist and Epidemiologist. She received her AuD from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and practiced in the greater Washington D.C. area for a number of years before pursuing a PhD in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a focus on epidemiology of aging. She has completed a post-doctoral fellowship in health services and outcomes research in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins as a Health Services and Outcomes Research T32 fellow. Her research is at the intersection of hearing and hearing care, gerontology, epidemiology and public health, dementia, caregiving, health services and health systems-level care, consumer-oriented health information technology, and implementation sciences or translation of research to clinical care. Her current work is funded through the Alzheimer's Association exploring innovative ways to support care partners of older adults with hearing loss and dementia. Most relevant to the topic of the webinar, she has published epidemiological research on hearing loss and risk of depressive symptoms in older adults. Click here to learn more.

Justin S. Golub


Justin S. Golub, MD, MS is an Associate Professor of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery and Vice Chair of Faculty Development at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He attended Emory University School of Medicine, residency in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle, and fellowship in neurotology at the University of Cincinnati. He obtained a masters in biostatistics at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He is the author of more than ninety peer-reviewed research publications and has co-edited four books, including a bestseller among trainees. Dr. Golub has an NIH-funded research program investigating the brain effects of age-related hearing loss. He has lectured internationally and his research has been reported in The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is also a leading pioneer in minimally invasive endoscopic ear surgery. Clinically he is interested in optimizing treatment of age-related hearing loss and improving outcomes using endoscopic ear surgery. Notably, working with an inter-professional team, he has published on the associations among age-related hearing loss, late-life depression and risk of incident dementia. Click here to learn more.
 

Bec Bennett

Bec Bennett is a Senior Research Audiologist at the National Acoustics Laboratories and an Adjunct Senior Clinical Research Fellow at Curtin University. Bec completed a Masters of Audiology in 2004 at the University of Queensland. While working as a clinical audiologist she completed a Masters of Business through the University of Newcastle to develop her managerial and project management skills. She managed a chain of hearing clinics in Western Australia from 2009 to 2013, during which time she competed a Graduate Diploma of Counselling so that she could develop a training program to help her staff develop their skills for providing better social and emotional support to their clients. In 2019, she completed her PhD (School of Medicine) through the University of Western Australia  and worked as a Research Lead at the Ear Science Institute Australia from 2019 to 2023. During this time, she was awarded two competitive post-doctoral research fellowships: (i) a Raine Medical Research Foundation Priming Fellowship 2020-2021, and (ii) a NHMRC Investigator Fellowship 2023-2028.

She joined NAL in 2023 as a Senior Research Audiologist, bringing 18 years of clinical, managerial, industry, teaching and research experience. Her training in psychology and counselling, paired with her experience in clinical management continues to shape her research directions. Her research focuses on best-practices for delivery of adult audiological rehabilitation, the social and emotional well-being impacts of hearing loss, and harnessing technology to augment and enhance audiology service delivery. In particular, she has investigated the readiness of audiologists to consider mental health issues in hearing care. Click here to learn more.


Ulrike Lemke

Ulrike Lemke has been a senior researcher at Sonova’s headquarters in Switzerland since 2006. Currently, she is the Senior Expert Healthy Aging at Sonova AG. She is interested in the relation of hearing and cognition as well as other health conditions and their impact for aging well. Ulrike holds a PhD in Psychology, a M.Sc. in Gerontology, and is licensed as a psychotherapist for cognitive-behavioral therapy. She is practicing as a clinical psychologist with a focus on clients in old age. For Sonova AG she has been influential in promoting team collaborations in international inter-disciplinary research on hearing, cognition and emotion as well as fostering the translation of knowledge to practice across professions. Click here to learn more.

8th Webinar: 23 May 2024: 

Hearing Care and Inter-professional Collaboration in Long-term Care

Marilyn Reed,  Nadia Sandor,  Walter Wittich,  Kathy McGilton, Kathy Pichora-Fuller


Click here to watch the recording

Abstract

In this webinar, we will explore why and how hearing care can be provided in the context of long-term care (LTC) homes for older adults who are no longer able to live independently in the community. Notably, the health of those living in LTC is considered to be within the domain of primary care. This is the 8th webinar in the series of webinars for the “Hearing in Later Life” working group to explore the intersections of hearing with the other key capacities (cognition, vision, mobility/balance, vitality/nutrition and mental health) identified in the WHO guidance on Integrated Care in Older Adults (ICOPE: see HLL webinar #2 from October 2023 on the WHO ICOPE). Older adults living in long-term residential care frequently experience declines in multiple key capacities and inter-professional collaborative teams can play a critical role in supporting the functioning of older adults in this setting. Sensory loss increases the risk of admission to long-term care and is associated with greater communication and functional difficulties for LTC residents with cognitive declines. Nevertheless, there are many opportunities to plan care that will optimize hearing and communication accessibility. Examples of hearing healthcare in LTC will be provided by audiologists with many years of experience working in LTC, an expert in dual sensory loss, and a nurse who is an international leader in research on improving interactions between LTC residents and nursing staff and the implementation of inter-professional collaborations in care planning to improve communication among residents. The panel will discuss past, present and future directions for inter-professional primary care teams to include hearing healthcare in the context of LTC and the imperatives to change health and social policies in the Decade of Healthy Aging.

Presenters
Marilyn Reed

Marilyn Reed is a Practice Advisor for audiology at Baycrest Health Sciences, a geriatric centre with outpatient and inpatient services as well as a seniors’ day centre, seniors’ independent living and long-term care residential facilities. Marilyn obtained her Master’s degree in Audiology from the University of Southampton, England in 1976 and has since worked in Canada in a variety of clinical settings, with a focus on hearing rehabilitation in older adults, including work in private practice providing hearing care in nursing homes. At Baycrest, she has worked as a clinician and clinical researcher in the area of hearing and cognition. Her recent projects include hearing screening in memory clinics and evaluating HEARS, a community-based hearing rehabilitation program for older adults in Toronto and New Brunswick, Canada.

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Nadia Sandor

Nadia Sandor is an audiologist at the Veterans' Centre in Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. She provides collaborative service as a member of an interprofessional health care team in a long-term care teaching hospital setting that has evolved over several decades. Prior to 2020, Nadia worked for over 30 years at Mount Sinai Hospital and subsequently for two years at Baycrest Health Sciences, delivering client and family-centered care with a geriatric focus.
 
Walter Wittich

Walter Wittich is an Associate Professor at the School of Optometry at the Université de Montréal, in Quebec, Canada. His research domains cover basic sensory science, as well as medical, psychosocial, and rehabilitation approaches to sensory loss. His research focuses on the rehabilitation of older adults with combined vision and hearing loss, including those living in long-term care homes. He is the inaugural chair of the Deafblind International Research Network, the 2020 recipient of the Canadian Helen Keller Centre 10th Annual JT Award, is a Fellow of both the American Academy of Optometry, and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, and is Quebec’s first Certified Low Vision Therapist.
Kathy McGilton

Kathy McGilton is a Senior Scientist, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute – University Health Network and Professor, Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto. Her research program integrates research, practice and policy in long-term care and rehabilitation care. Her research program focuses on three complementary objectives: 1) understanding and improving interactions between staff and residents in long-term care; 2) the supportive leadership capacity of staff in long-term care; and 3) interdisciplinary care delivery models for older adults with cognitive impairment that enhance the appropriateness and effectiveness of care. The results of this research program have led to innovations in models of care and positive outcomes for older adults and staff in long-term care and rehabilitation environments that have been translated to protocols that guide the provision of care in these settings. She is the founder of the International Consortium of the Professional Practice of Nurses in Long-Term Care, where leaders collaborate to improve care outcomes for residents and practice conditions for staff.

Resources

Guthrie, D., Davidson, J.G.S., Williams, N., Campos, J., Hunter, K., Mick, P. T., Orange, J. B., Pichora-Fuller, M. K., Phillips, N., Savundranayagam, M., & Wittich, W. (2018). Combined impairments in vision, hearing and cognition are associated with greater levels of functional and communication difficulties than cognitive impairment alone: An analysis of interRAI data for home care and long-term care recipients in Ontario. PLoS ONE, 13(2): e0192971. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0192971

McGilton, K., Rochon, E., Sidani, S., Shaw, A., Ben-David, B., Saragosa, M., Boscart, V., Wilson, R., Galimidi-Epstein, K. K., & Pichora-Fuller, M.K. (2017). Can we help care providers to communicate more effectively with persons with dementia living in Long-Term Care Homes? American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias, 32(1), 41-50. https://doi.org/10.1177/1533317516680899

Williams, N., Phillips, N. A., Wittich, W., Campos, J. L., Mick, P., Orange, J. B., Pichora-Fuller, M. K., Savundranayagam, M. Y., & Guthrie, D. M., (2020). Hearing and cognitive impairments increase the risk of long-term care admissions. Innovations in Aging, 4 (2),igz053, https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igz053 

9th Webinar: June 13 2024: 


Launching the Hearing in Later Life Community of Practice – Orientation and Priority Setting

Kathy :-Fuller (Moderator), Sheila Moodie (Co-Moderator)
Guests: Danielle Glista, Bonnie Cooke


Click here to watch the recording

Background

Since October 2012, we have held monthly webinars to provide an orientation to the topic of Hearing in Later Life (HLL) using the World Health Organization guidance on Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE). These webinars have set the stage for embarking on a new International Society of Audiology (ISA) Community of Practice (CoP) that will advance the delivery of hearing health care to older adults in the context of inter-professional teams (see webinar #2 held Nov 16, 2023). Almost 500 individuals have registered for one or more of the webinars and there have been thousands of downloads of the recordings.

We are now at the end of Phase 1 of the workplan for the HLL Working Group (click here to view the workplan). So far, we have identified about 30 individuals who have expressed an interest in working in the new audiology CoP on HLL. During the webinar on June 13th, we will begin Phase 2 (planned for Summer 2024) to launch the CoP.

All delegates registered for the June 13 webinar will be added to the ISA database as a member of the new CoP working group on HLL. If you do not wish to become a member of the working group, send a mail to gd@e2.co.za stating - do not add my name to the CoP working group.

The format of the webinar on June 13th will be interactive discussion to include:               

1.       What is a CoP? – ask your questions (15 minutes)

2.   Are we ready to provide hearing care for older adults in the context of inter-professional teams? – share your experiences (15 minutes)

3.     Thinking about ICOPE and our prior webinars, what are the topics that you think the ISA HLL CoP should prioritize? (15 minutes)

4.       Next steps as we develop an implementation workplan over July/August 2024 – what are your ideas? (15 minutes)

Click here to view the timeline.


Presenters

Kathy Pichora-Fuller

Professor Emerita (Psychology, U of T) and Adjunct Professor (Gerontology, SFU). For over three decades, she has translated her research on auditory and cognitive aging to address the rehabilitative needs of adults with age-related hearing and cognitive impairments, with a more recent focus on social engagement and healthy aging, including promoting brain health

Sheila Moodie


Dr. Sheila Moodie is an audiologist and researcher with over three decades of experience in the field. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Moodie completed a Master of Clinical Science in Audiology and a PhD at Western University. The focus of her doctoral research was exploring the use of integrated knowledge translation to facilitate the development of the UWO PedAMP outcome measure for pediatric audiology. Throughout her career, Dr. Moodie has recognized the importance of communities of practice (CoP) in audiology for developing evidence-informed practice and moving research into practice.
 

Danielle Glista


Danielle Glista, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, an Associate member of the National Centre for Audiology, and the Director of the Connected Hearing Healthcare Lab at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. Her recent research efforts have focused on technology-enabled hearing healthcare and the integration of complex health solutions into practice using collaborative care models. Dr. Glista's person-centered approach involves interdisciplinary teams and mixed methods research to engage clinicians, patients, families, and community/industry partners. Current projects, employing human-centered design, aim to enhance the clinical implementation of virtual care services, mHealth apps, and real-world assessment tools. Dr. Glista is part of an interdisciplinary research team exploring readiness factors and developing curricula to integrate audiologists and speech-language pathologists into team-based primary care.

Bonnie Cooke


Bonnie Cooke obtained a Master’s degree in Audiology from Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. Currently, she is the Director of Audiology with Speech-Language and Audiology Canada (SAC), a national association for audiologists. She has served on the Executive Board of the Canadian Academy of Audiology. She has a diverse background in clinical and corporate audiology, advisory experience working with several audiology groups, and experience as an audiology educator. Over the last year, she has contributed to a project on inter-professional education as part of “Team Primary Care” (https://www.teamprimarycare.ca/) and is co-leading (with Danielle Glista) a project to develop an audiology inter-professional primary care community of practice in Canada.

Resources 

Paper about communities of practice: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/kpm.1747

Pediatric audiology example of a community of practice: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1084713811417634 


Bastiaens, E., & Heymann, P. (2023). Reflections on establishing an effective and sustainable community of practice for a strategic objective within a higher education institution. Knowledge and Process Management, 30(2), 216–226. https://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.1747

Moodie, S. T., Bagatto, M. P., Miller, L. T., Kothari, A., Seewald, R., & Scollie, S. D. (2011). An integrated knowledge translation experience: Use of the Network of Pediatric Audiologists of Canada to facilitate the development of the University of Western Ontario Pediatric Audiological Monitoring Protocol (UWO PedAMP v1.0). Trends in Amplification, 15(1), 34-56. doi: 10.1177/1084713811417634.

Wenger-Trayner, E., Wenger-Trayner, B., Reid, P., & Bruderlein, C. (2023). Communities of Practice within and across Organizations: A Guidebook. Social Learning Lab: Portugal. https://www.wenger-trayner.com/cop-guidebook/ 


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