Millions of Americans experience some degree of hearing loss. The Social Security Administration (SSA) operates programs that provide cash disability benefits to people with permanent impairments like hearing loss, if they can show that their impairments meet stringent SSA criteria and their earnings are below an SSA threshold. The National Research Council convened an expert committee at the request of the SSA to study the issues related to disability determination for people with hearing loss. This volume is the product of that study. Hearing Loss: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits reviews current knowledge about hearing loss and its measurement and treatment, and provides an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the current processes and criteria. It recommends changes to strengthen the disability determination process and ensure its reliability and fairness. The book addresses criteria for selection of pure tone and speech tests, guidelines for test administration, testing of hearing in noise, special issues related to testing children, and the difficulty of predicting work capacity from clinical hearing test results. It should be useful to audiologists, otolaryngologists, disability advocates, and others who are concerned with people who have hearing loss.

Hearing Impairment - An Invisible Disability is the first work of its kind to comprehensively cover all aspects of hearing impairment. It covers the following categories through more than 100 contributions from all over the world to constitute an encyclopedia of hearing impairment: - Hearing Basics: What does hearing impairment mean? Its causes and effects are explained through many real-world examples. - Children: Childhood is a time when hearing impairment often begins, so proper treatment at an early stage can help alleviate difficulties and allow for as normal a life as possible. Many case studies from both the developed and developing parts of the world, including Indonesia and Latin America in the latter category, are provided to aid comprehension. - Hearing Aids: Through newly emerging technology and with the help of electronics companies, new and affordable hearing aids are being developed and marketed. The authors take a closer look at this burgeoning field. - Medical Aspects: Medical treatment of hearing impairment has recently shown remarkable change, manifested in improved techniques and applications all over the world. Although mainly of relevance to researchers and practicing physicians, the clear explanation of the medical and technical terminology is likely to be of interest to all concerned with the future of hearing impairment. - Social and International Help: With a wealth of assistance from individuals, NGOs, and international organizations specifically tailored to help the hearing impaired, those in need of guidance can gain confidence from the knowledge that substantial support is available to help them pursue a full and varied life.

The loss of hearing - be it gradual or acute, mild or severe, present since birth or acquired in older age - can have significant effects on one's communication abilities, quality of life, social participation, and health. Despite this, many people with hearing loss do not seek or receive hearing health care. The reasons are numerous, complex, and often interconnected. For some, hearing health care is not affordable. For others, the appropriate services are difficult to access, or individuals do not know how or where to access them. Others may not want to deal with the stigma that they and society may associate with needing hearing health care and obtaining that care. Still others do not recognize they need hearing health care, as hearing loss is an invisible health condition that often worsens gradually over time. In the United States, an estimated 30 million individuals (12.7 percent of Americans ages 12 years or older) have hearing loss. Globally, hearing loss has been identified as the fifth leading cause of years lived with disability. Successful hearing health care enables individuals with hearing loss to have the freedom to communicate in their environments in ways that are culturally appropriate and that preserve their dignity and function. Hearing Health Care for Adults focuses on improving the accessibility and affordability of hearing health care for adults of all ages. This study examines the hearing health care system, with a focus on non-surgical technologies and services, and offers recommendations for improving access to, the affordability of, and the quality of hearing health care for adults of all ages.

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The partial or total inability to hear is referred to as hearing impairment. It may occur in both ears or a single ear. It leads to difficulties in learning a spoken language and social interaction. Some of the factors contributing to hearing loss include aging, infections, genetics, trauma to the ear and birth complications. It can be categorized as mild, moderate, moderate-severe, severe or profound, depending upon the unheard decibels in a particular ear. Otoscopy, tympanometry and auditory function tests such as Weber test, Rinne test, etc. are used to diagnose hearing impairment. Hearing aids are commonly used to assist speech comprehension in such patients. This book provides comprehensive insights into hearing impairment and disability. It elucidates the concepts and innovative models around prospective developments with respect to the diagnosis and treatment of this medical condition. This book will prove to be immensely beneficial to students and researchers in the field of otolaryngology.

"Much research has been conducted to provide researchers and hearing healthcare professionals with updated information in regard to hearing assessments, results interpretation and case management. This ongoing research is particularly imperative to guide clinicians with optimized methods in assessing and managing pediatric patients with hearing impairment and disability. As such, tremendous research efforts have been made in determining the most optimum methods in assessing hearing using both subjective and objective tests. Since hearing loss can occur due to disrupted peripheral and/or central auditory pathway, there is also a growing interest to study children with auditory processing disorder (APD). Even though notable achievements have been observed in understanding APD, more research is required, particularly in establishing a gold standard APD test and its specific interventions. Aditionally, having an objective test such as speech-evoked auditory brainstem response is beneficial to understand how speech sounds are encoded within the brainstem region in hearing-impaired children, as well as in those with compromised neural function. In this book, we have gathered research from Malaysia and India in this field and hope it will be of interest to our readers"--