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Abstract

Successful communication is vital to active aging and well-being, yet virtually all older adults find it challenging to communicate effectively in noisy environments. The resulting discomfort and frustration can prompt withdrawal or avoidance of social situations, which, in turn, can severely limit the range of activities available to older adults and lead to a less active and satisfying lifestyle, and, in some cases, depression. Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health's (ICF) multifactorial model (WHO, 2001), we review the wider aspects of functioning and disability as they relate to hearing difficulties and communication, placing a particular emphasis on the work we, an international and interdisciplinary group of researchers, have done in the context of the ERA-NET funded interdisciplinary HEARATTN project. The ICF model is particularly fitting because it allows us to consider how physiological changes in hearing and cognition affect listening in various situations, what the consequences of these changes are for communicative abilities and social participation, and how this in turn affects life-space mobility, self-reported well-being, and, ultimately, quality of life. We will discuss how environmental conditions (both physical and social) and personal factors can affect how well older adults can communicate in the situations characteristic of everyday life. In the concluding section we discuss some behaviours, techniques and strategies that can be adopted to maintain or improve effective communication under difficult listening conditions.

Age-Related Changes in the Perception of Emotions in Speech: Assessing Thresholds of Prosody and Semantics Recognition in Noise for Young and Older Adults

“…In other words, older adults needed speech to be presented at ∼2.2 dB SNR louder than young adults to reach their recognition threshold in noise. These results are in line with the abundant literature on speech perception in noise ( Heinrich et al, 2016 ). Semantics: Age-related changes in semantic emotion recognition follow findings on spoken word recognition.…”

“…Communication in older age is essential to maintain quality of life, cognitive skills, and emotional wellbeing ( Heinrich et al, 2016 ; Livingston et al, 2017 ). Abundant evidence suggests that speech processing is impaired in aging, with severe implications ( Helfer et al, 2017 ).…”

Effects of Age and Uncertainty on the Visual Speech Benefit in Noise

“…Third, the listening span task (LSPAN; Conway et al, 2005) and the Trail Making Test (Reitan, 1992) were administered to examine working memory capacity and executive function, respectively. These cognitive tasks were administered for two reasons: As attentional resources are important for both working memory and executive function, any age differences in performance on these tasks would support the claim that OAs have smaller attentional resource capacities than YAs (Craik & Byrd, 1982;Heinrich et al, 2016). The other reason is that by evaluating the relationship between these cognitive measures and the performance on the current paradigm, there is an opportunity to obtain data that can then be used to extend existing models used within cognitive hearing science (i.e., the Ease of Language Understanding [ELU] model and the Framework for Understanding Effortful Listening), since these do not consider processes that may be involved in establishing the correspondence of AV speech.…”

“Post-lockdown Depression”: Adaptation Difficulties, Depressive Symptoms, and the Role of Positive Solitude When Returning to Routine After the Lifting of Nation-Wide COVID-19 Social Restrictions

“…Social distancing incurred significant life changes that could be experienced as negative or positive, such as losing or changing jobs and un/healthy lifestyle changes (6). Restrictions also severely disrupted social interactions, social presence, communication and daily routines, all important to maintain cognitive performance and wellbeing [see (7,8)]. Taken together, social restrictions have been found to impair mental health, including an increase in anxiety, depressive symptoms, loneliness and social isolation (9)(10)(11).…”