The Oldest Old-New Challenges and Responsibilities for Audiologists

ABSTRACT

There is much use of the term “elderly” to describe people who are aged 65 and beyond. Suddenly, however, we are aware that the “beyond” now includes a significant population that was previously believed to contain relatively few persons on the extreme end of the life span, the octogenarians and the nonagenarians and those phenomenal few whom we admire, the centenarians. Demographic realities of the older population, however, indicate that the term elderly is now an inadequate generalization that conceals the diversity of a broad age range, sometimes spanning up to 30 or more years of life during a period of frequent and profound changes in the individual. This article focuses on the rapidly growing population aged 85 and over, for whom the term “oldest old” seems to be appropriate at present. Most of them have demonstrable changes of psychoacoustic characteristics in addition to central changes that we are still trying to understand, yet few are enthusiastic about using a hearing aid, in part, at least, because of limitations in their physical abilities to handle today's miniature instruments (e.g., hand tremors, arthritis). The need for more sophisticated, yet simply managed, alternative devices and for significant improvement in today's communication technology (e.g., the telephone) for this burgeoning population is clear.

Oldest old - aging audition - audiological management

REFERENCES

• 1 Hayflick L. How and Why We Age. New York; Ballantine 1994: 84-91
• 2 Suzman RM, Willis DP, Manton KG The Oldest Old. New York; Oxford University Press 1992: 12
• 3 Cohen J E. Human population grows up.  Sci Am. 2005;  26-33 , (Special Issue)
• 4 U.S. Census Bureau .We the American Elderly. U.S. Census Bureau September 1993
• 5 Isaacs B. Recent Advances in Geriatric Medicine. London; Churchill Livingstone 1985: 220
• 6 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .National Health Interview Study (2000-2002). Atlanta, GA; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics 2002
• 7 Ferrans C, Powers M. Quality of life index: development and psychometric properties.  Adv Nurse Sci. 1985;  8 15-24
• 8 Woods A M, Birren J E. The psychology of ageing. In: Pathy MSJ Principles and Practice of Geriatric Medicine. New York; John Wiley 1991: 127-140
• 9 Engdahl B, Tambs C, Borchgrevink H M, Hoffman H J. Screened and unscreened threshold levels for the adult population: results from the Nord-Trøndelag Hearing Loss Study.  Int J Audiol. 2005;  44 213-230
• 10 Davis H. Hearing and Deafness. New York; Rinehart 1947: 261
• 11 Rowe J W, Kahn R L. Successful Aging. New York; Pantheon Books 1998: 188-189