Towards a new assessment battery : hearing, cognition, and emotional health

Introduction and background: In 2018, 47 million people worldwide are living with dementia with millions more involved in their care. Interventions targeting risk factors for dementia have the potential to delay or prevent a third of cases. Livingstone et al. (2017) estimated that addressing mid-life hearing loss could prevent up to 9.1% of new cases (the highest of any modifiable risk factor they reported) and addressing social isolation and depression, which may be caused or exacerbated by hearing loss, could prevent another 2.3% and 4.0% of new cases, respectively. Despite its high prevalence in older adults, hearing loss per se only recently has been recognised as a risk factor, and any direct (or indirect) causal pathway is still to be established. The aim of this symposium is to introduce and invite feedback on new research findings, assessment measures, and approaches to intervention. We highlight the need for collaboration across hearing and dementia, clinical and research disciplines as we work to reveal links between hearing loss and cognitive decline and intervene in impactful ways. Learning outcomes: Attendees will see new findings on links between hearing loss and cognitive decline in older Aboriginal Australians (Radford); learn about the prevalence of hearing loss, the nature of hearing assessment, and common delays in treatment, as well as ways that untreated hearing loss impairs everyday communication and collaboration (Barnier and Scanlan); hear about new audiological measures that might better capture impacts of hearing loss (and hearing intervention) on communication (Beechey); see findings of a treatment study that aims to improve social participation in anxious and depressed older adults (Wuthrich); and comment on a new multidisciplinary assessment battery that may assist practitioners in matching the appropriate combination of hearing treatment and cognitive, communication, emotional, or social training to maximise clinical benefits for older adults (Strutt).