BACKGROUND As in all western countries, Australia's older population experiences high levels of hearing impairment coupled with relatively low levels of hearing device usage. Poor hearing diminishes the quality of life of affected individuals and their families. This paper discusses how to improve Australian hearing health policies in order to better combat this impairment amongst older Austral...

This review concentrates on factors causing permanent hearing impairment in childhood, described in some European studies. The emphasis is on comparative studies, based on strict criteria and terminology upon which longitudinal changes in the pattern of factors causing hearing impairment can be demonstrated in well-defined cohorts of children. The high proportion of 20-39 percent of unknown cau...

PURPOSE Spatial hearing refers to the ability to understand speech and identify sounds in various environments. We assessed the validity of the Korean version of the Spatial Hearing Questionnaire (K-SHQ). MATERIALS AND METHODS We performed forward translation of the original English SHQ to Korean and backward translation from the Korean to English. Forty-eight patients who were able to read a...

OBJECTIVE To identify factors contributing to the declining prevalence of hearing impairment in more recent generations. METHODS We used data on hearing thresholds and potential risk factors of hearing impairment collected from studies in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, the Epidemiology of Hearing Loss Study (1993-1995, n=3753; 1998-2000, n=2800 and 2003-2005, n=2395), the concurrent Beaver Dam Eye St...

The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of hearing impairment in children in a public hospital in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and to investigate the association with risk factors described in the literature. This study was cross-sectional and retrospective and analyzed 798 newborns and infants evaluated in the Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening Program from June 2...

CONTEXT Hearing impairment affects many older adults, but the incidence is unknown. OBJECTIVE To determine the 5-year incidence and progression of hearing impairment. DESIGN A longitudinal, population-based study of adults aged 48 to 92 years at baseline examination. Hearing sensitivity was measured twice, 5 years apart. SETTING Testing was conducted at the Beaver Dam Community Hospital, ...

Studies on socioeconomic and epidemiological effects of hearing impairment in middle-income countries of Southeast Asia are still quite scarce. This study examines the association between hearing impairment and health outcomes in Thailand. Data derived from a cohort of 87 134 Open University adults aged 15 to 87 years residing throughout Thailand. Approximately 8.5% of cohort members reported t...

BACKGROUND We aimed to investigate predictors of change in pure-tone hearing thresholds in older adults. METHODS Data were drawn from a pooled sample from the Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing (DYNOPTA) project (N = 4,221, mean age = 73.6, range: 50-103 years). Pure-tone hearing thresholds were tested for frequencies between 0.5 and 8 kHz, on up to four occasions over a period of 11 years. ...

BACKGROUND Childhood hearing impairment is a significant cause of disability in developing countries. Otitis media and meningitis are leading infectious causes of preventable hearing loss in children. It is estimated that the Pacific Islands have among the greatest global burden of childhood hearing impairment due to infectious causes, and yet there is currently very little in the research lite...

We, as normal people, have access to a potent communication tool, which is sound. Although we can continuously gather, analyse, and interpret sounds thanks our sense of hearing, it be challenging for people with hearing impairment perceive their surroundings through Also known PWHI (People Hearing Impairment). Auditory/phonic one the most prevailing sensory deficits in humans at present. Fortun...