Naerum, Denmark — In order to assist hearing health professionals to better understand each individual’s experience with hearing loss, the Ida Institute has just introduced a new counseling tool called "Living Well – Managing Hearing Loss in Daily Life." The tool provides a patient-centered approach to defining “living well” for a variety of patients in a range of clinical settings.

"The Living Well tool enables hearing care professionals to bring the patient’s perspective on his or her daily experience with hearing loss into the clinical setting," explains Ida Institute managing director Lise Lotte Bundesen, in the press release. “Clinicians can then reinforce effective communication strategies and begin to explore alternate strategies for difficult situations. This patient-centered approach allows patient and audiologist to jointly decide on new strategies to implement, set goals for improved communication, and formulate a plan for achieving those goals.”

Using photo cards depicting real-life situations, patients select the situations that best match their daily lives and then sort the cards according to how easy or challenging each situation is for them to manage. Markers are used to indicate how important each situation is for the individual’s lifestyle. Strategy cards that suggest communication and technology solutions are then applied to each scenario.

Blank strategy cards are also provided to allow patients to craft unique strategies that are tailored to their particular situations. With this information, the hearing care professional can be well equipped to collaborate with the patient and create a holistic plan that accurately addresses the patient’s needs for managing communication in daily life.

Hearing care professionals can purchase "Living Well – Managing Hearing Loss in Daily Life" on the Institute’s website or download a free copy for self assembly. A video-based user guide is also available.

Additionally, The August edition of The Hearing Review features a series of articles from Ida Institute faculty members on the topic of "Living Well with Hearing Loss".

SOURCE: Ida Institute