Older people with hearing impairment: A literature review of the spouse's perspective

Spouses of older people with hearing impairment frequently urge their hearing impaired partners to see help for their hearing difficulties. Only a minority of individuals with hearing impairment are self motivated, with the majority of clients, especially older clients, presenting at audiology clinics under the persuasion or influence of their spouse or significant other. This highlights the important role that spouse play in initiating aural rehabilitation and indicates that spouses of older people with hearing impairment ma become so frustrated with their partners hearing loss that they are often the primary reason why the hearing impaired person presents for audiological services. To date, however, the number of studies addressing the effect of hearing loss on significant others is limited Those studies that have investigated the effect of hearing impairment on families are commonly focused on the person with the impairment and mos commonly, the significant other has merely been use as a proxy to describe the perceived problems of his or her spouse. Further, there has been no systematic in depth investigation of the needs of spouses of older people with hearing impairment, including the effect of retirement and the increase in time spent together with the majority of studies focusing primarily or younger spouses of workers affected by noise-induce hearing loss. The cumulative effect of experiencing many years of hearing difficulties with a partner ma also influence the extent to which older spouses are affected by hearing impairment. The primary purpose of this article is therefore to critically review the existing literature on the effects of hearing impairment of spouses. It will also provide a rationale for the importance of this topic as a clinical issue and suggest some future directions for research in this area.