Late-Onset Hearing Loss: Strategies for Effective Counseling

✍ Scribed by Charlene M. Kampfe; S. Mae Smith

• Publisher: American Counseling Association
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 1013 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1524-6817
• DOI: 10.1002/j.2161-0029.1999.tb00080.x

✦ Synopsis

Late-onset hearing loss is one of the major chronic conditions experienced by older individuals. The tern presbycusis is typically used when describing this condition. Presbycusis refers to many degenerative changes that afect older peopki hearing. This article provider practical sugxestions f i r working with persons with this condition.

Hearing loss is one of the major chronic conditions experienced by older people (Aging America, 1991). Estimates of the prevalence of this condition among older persons range from 24% (National Center for Health Statistics, 1990) to 74% (Davis, 1983). The older population is one of the fastest growing populations in the United States (Fowles & Duncker, 1996). Given the increasing number of older adults and the high prevalence of hearing loss among these individuals, counselors are likely to encounter persons with late onset hearing loss with increasing frequincy.

Because acquisition of a hearing loss often involves loss of the ability to communicate, such a loss is often associated with a sense of isolation, lone-