AUDITORY REHABILITATION - NEEDS AND REALITIES ON LONG-STAY WARDS FOR ELDERLY PEOPLE

A survey was made of the problem of age-related hearing impairment wit hin a sample of National Health Service long-stay wards for elderly pe ople, Detailed assessment of hearing was completed for 188 residents d erived from 15 long-stay wards, located within nine Scottish hospitals , The sample residents were more than four times as likely to need a h earing aid as their contemporaries in the general population, Of the 1 31 people considered to be potential hearing aid candidates, 103 (78%) demonstrated a positive attitude towards hearing aid ownership. Medic al policies on the study wards were not considered sensitive to the ne eds of the hearing-impaired; screening was haphazard and specialist re ferral problematic.