I Just Got Hearing Aids … Is That All There Is?
By Ross, Mark; Hearing Loss Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 26-28Publication Date: March/April 2010
Article discusses the benefits of a group Aural Rehabilitation (AR) program following hearing aid fitting. Similar in concept to physical therapy following joint replacement surgery, a typical AR program could consist of four weeks of counseling regarding common problems associated with wearing a hearing aid, types of hearing loss, effective use of hearing instrument special features, speech reading and auditory relearning, and an overview of hearing assistive technologies such as smoke alarms and special purpose devices such as those for telephones and televisions. AR programs in a group setting including significant others (SOs) can be particularly effective for sharing feelings and experiences with other hearing aid users and their partners. Results of a post AR program survey conducted at the Mayo Clinic in Florida, revealing a 97 percent satisfaction rate among participants, are used to illustrate the effectiveness of AR programs. In addition, a comparative study is cited using hearing aid users and their SOs to test the effectiveness of a group class designed specifically for SOs, which resulted in 75 percent of couples in the group receiving SO classes being in agreement about their perception of how the hearing loss affected their lives, compared to 50 percent pre-intervention, while agreement remained at 50 percent in the control group.
Published by: Hearing Loss Association of America (formerly Self Help for Hard of Hearing People) (Website:http://www.hearingloss.org)
