Kamal Elliot, AuD, is a person to be admired. Her desire and dedication to providing the best quality of care led her on journeys into private practice ownership as well as multiple international and local humanitarian missions. She has served on state and national audiology organization boards. Recently, I was fortunate to catch up with Dr. Elliot.

A recent paper by Wilson et al (2017) addressed the growing global burden of disease (GBD), which indicates an increasing—and now alarmingly high—burden of hearing loss worldwide.  According to the authors, hearing loss is the fourth leading contributor to years lived with disability (YLD) worldwide in 2015, up from the 11th-leading cause in 2010. 

A recent commission from "The Lancet"  focused on dementia. In this review, the authors outline nine potentially modifiable health and lifestyle factors from different phases of life that, if eliminated, might prevent or at least delay dementia. The authors stress that dementia, much like hearing loss, is not an inevitable consequence of aging, rather it is multifaceted and potentially 1/3 of cases preventable.

As audiologists, we know firsthand the impact that hearing loss has on communication. Before we begin speaking, we look at our patients and provide an unobstructed view of our face. As soon as patients walk into our office, we adjust the volume, pitch, and tempo of our speech to ensure that they can hear and understand us. We hope that other health-care providers, including physicians, are also attuned to their patients’ hearing needs particularly when helping older adults where a prevalence of hearing loss is high.

NPR featured a piece on  “All Things Considered,” considering how to improve speech understanding in noisy environments. The segment focused on an ongoing study by Frank Russo, the director of the Science of Music, Auditory Research, and Technology Lab (SMART Lab) at Ryerson University in Toronto.