Abstract
In the era of the super aging society, with the increasing number of patients with age-related hearing loss, there is a high demand for hearing aids. Furthermore, recent reports of the existence of an association between hearing loss and progression of dementia underscore the importance of fulfilling the needs for hearing aids. Our institute, a core hospital in the aging community, started a specialized outpatient clinic for prescribing hearing aids in 2017. In this study, we analyzed the accumulated clinical data of 178 patients who came to the clinic between October 2017 and December 2020. While a total of 154 patients (87%) were willing to start using hearing aids at the first visit, only 99 patients (55%) finally purchased hearing aids. The patient background characteristics were not significantly different between patients who purchased and did not purchase hearing aids, whereas the motivation for wearing hearing aids and the number of visits required for determining whether hearing aids should be worn or not were significantly higher among patients who finally purchased hearing aids. The top three reasons for not purchasing hearing aids were 1) not feeling the necessity (28%), 2) financial difficulties (22%), and 3) inability to adapt to hearing aids (18%). Although our institute introduced hearing rehabilitation, the proportion of patients who purchased hearing aids was relatively low as compared with previous reports; that could be attributable to the lack of systematic operation of the specialized outpatient clinic, including absence of established criteria to determine the duration of rehabilitation and lack of cooperation with speech therapists. On the other hand, the patient’s motivation and financial support were highly important for successful starting of hearing-aid wearing, considering the reasons for dropout from treatment. Taken together, establishing a protocol for hearing rehabilitation and patient education for hearing loss are important for improving the success rate in hearing aid treatment.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
