A Survey on Hearing Loss, Dizziness, and Balance Problems as Fall Risk Factors: Responses of Older Adults Seen by Audiologists.

Background:  Falls are a significant health care concern for older adults in the United States. Audiologists are health care providers who are experts in hearing and vestibular dysfunctions, two areas known to be risk factors for falls. It is not known whether audiology patients consider audiology services to be related to falls or whether they consider audiologists to be a viable resource related to fall-related health care.

Purpose:  The purpose of this study was to investigate whether audiology patients consider (1) hearing, dizziness, and balance difficulties as risk factors for falls, and (2) audiologists as health care providers who can address fall risk, assessment, and prevention.

Research design:  This was a cross-sectional survey study.

Study sample:  In total, 78 community-dwelling audiology patients aged 60 years or older were included in the study.

Intervention:  Not applicable DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS:  To reach a broad group of participants, online surveys (Qualtrics) and paper-and-pencil surveys (at the university clinic) were used. The analysis included descriptive statistics and independent-samples t-tests.

Results:  Nearly half of participants (48.7%) fell within the preceding year, and almost three-quarters (72.4%) felt falls were an important health care concern for them. Fewer than half (43.4%) considered hearing loss to be a fall risk factor, compared to dizziness (92.2%) and balance problems (97.3%). Slightly over half (53.3%) agreed that audiologists can address falls, fall risk, and prevention. However, only 39.5% would discuss falls with their audiologist, compared to 57.9% for dizziness and balance concerns and 90.5% for hearing concerns. No significant differences were found between participants who reported a recent fall and those who did not.

Conclusions:  Targeted patient education regarding the audiology scope of practice as it pertains to fall risk and prevention may be warranted, particularly if hearing loss is a modifiable fall risk factor which can be addressed through seeking audiologic services.