Hearing Loss

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force announced that the “balance of benefits and harms cannot be determined” in screening asymptomatic adults older than 50 years for hearing loss.

WHO’s inaugural World Report on Hearing estimates that about one in four people — or about 2.5 billion — worldwide will have some type of hearing loss by 2050.

In this issue, Susan Weiner, MS, RDN, CDN, CDCES, FADCES, talks with the director of practice and content development at the Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists, Joanne Rinker, MS, RDN, CDCES, LDN, FADCES, about the need to identify and manage hearing loss in diabetes care.

An electronic health record alert that reminded clinicians to ask patients aged older than 55 years about their hearing significantly increased the number referrals to an audiologist, data show.

Nearly three in four American teenagers reported exposure to loud sounds at school for more than 15 minutes per day, according to results published in MMWR.

Tinnitus appears to be worsening in patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, including those who were and were not infected with the novel coronavirus, according to research published in Frontiers in Public Health.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Opioid-associated ototoxicity, or hearing loss, appears to be an adverse event that can occur with the use of a variety of opioids, according to research published in the Journal of Medical Toxicology.

Severe hearing loss among survivors of childhood cancer appeared associated with neurocognitive deficits independent of the neurotoxic therapy they received, according to results of a cross-sectional study published in JAMA Oncology.

The association between hearing loss and cognition may begin earlier than previously thought — even when patients are still considered to have normal hearing, according to a study published in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head Neck Surgery.