U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, recently released an advisory on the epidemic of loneliness, a pressing public health issue confronting our nation. Murthy emphasized that social connections are protective and are independent risk factors for conditions ranging from cardiovascular disease to dementia. He discussd the import of investing in health care provider education on the benefits of social connections as well as the risks of social disconnections and its impacts on well-being. By integrating social prescribing/connections into preventive care and primary care, he argued that we can help prevent selected forms of social disconnection and can help to mitigate early feelings of isolation and loneliness. The evidence linking social connections to hearing status in older adults is emerging. In their scoping review of the influence of hearing loss on social participation in older adults, Chaintre and colleagues. concluded that that older adults with hearing loss have difficulty maintaining relationships and tend to withdraw from social activities that are considered important to them. The role audiologists can play in facilitating social connectedness as part of routine hearing health care will be discussed along. with the relevance to the. well being of the persons with whom we. work and by association our professional job satisfaction.
- Participants will become familiar with the terms auditory, wellness, social connectedness, loneliness and social isolation
- Participants will gain an understanding of how to quantify auditory wellness and how to optimize it in clinical practice
- Participants will become conversant with evidence linking hearing status two social connectedness
