Enhancing communication for older patients with impaired hearing through environmental design

Abstract

The Problem and Solutions
WThe listening environment can have
a negative impact on speech understanding
in older adulthood. Those include listening
environments involving home, church,
health care facilities, clinics, auditoriums,
and the many other environments that
possess natural or man-made barriers
that can impede an older adult’s ability
to understand the speech of others. In a
medical clinic, it is especially important that
older patients are able to understand what
physicians and nurses are saying to them!
Here are some examples of environments
that can cause older adults with impaired
hearing problems understanding the speech
of others and some ways to assist them:
Problem Environments
Clinics, Meeting Rooms, Church
Sanctuaries, Homes and Other Frequented
Environments. Meeting rooms, medical
clinics, nursing home all-purpose rooms,
church sanctuaries, homes, auditoriums,
bank lobbies, and many other environments
in which older adults find themselves are
generally not conducive to hearing and
understanding speech. They either resemble
reverberation chambers (too many almost
subliminal echoes), or on the other hand,
anechoic environments (environments in
which sound has difficulty traveling to the
listener because it is absorbed or blocked).