Sunday the 29th of May 2016 - AEA_ECAT Mini Symposium

Here is the program with some of the key statements.
• Hearing Care in Portugal - Associação Portuguesa de Audiologistas & Associação Portuguesa de Audioprótesistas
– Goals are to increase access to Audiology care and stimulate training and scientific development
– Join forces with both associations to regulate hearing care professionals in order to ensure end-user will get quality care.
• Improving outcomes by embracing user/patient involvement – Lidia Best (EFHOH)
– “Nothing about us without us” – the hard of hearing people want and need to be involved … participation is essential
– Critical constructive analysis and recommendations for the EN standard on services provided by hearing aid professionals and the AEA code of conduct.
– Getting our numbers right … the use of self-reported hearing loss.
• Hearing Aids improve Hearing … and a LOT more - Soren Hougaard (EHIMA)
– Perceived hearing solution performance is key driver for satisfaction - Binaurally fitted users are more satisfied - People with hearing aids sleep better – Hearing care improves quality of life.
– Getting our numbers right … how many of hearing care recommended people use hearing aids?
• The importance of early diagnosis … for Men– Ian Banks (Men’s Health Forum)
– FRANCE - Retirement age up by 2 years to 62 in 2010 - Life Expectancy: 81
– GERMANY - Retirement age increasing from 65 to 67 between 2012 & 2029 - Life Expectancy: 79
– ITALY - Retirement age increasing by 3 or 6 months - Life Expectancy: 80
– SPAIN- Retirement age may increase by 2 years (65 – 67) - Life Expectancy: 80
– UNITED KINGDOM - Retirement age to increase by 1 year to 66 by 2020; and to 67 by 2050 - Life Expectancy: 79.
– Awareness and intervention is important to ensure that “men” actively stay involved in society … but we need to convince them in a different way!!!
• The Economic Impact of Hearing Loss in France and Europe – Laurence Hartmann (Economist - France)
– HL is considered as a major public health issue in the scientific literature and by international agencies
– The burden of illness concerns more than 5% of the global population that is 360 million people (and one third of the population aged over 65 years)
– Main consequences of HL are due to the decrease in communication and human interaction, which has an impact upon mental, psychological and cognitive dimensions of the person’s health status
– Causal relationships between HL and each of these dimensions are better quantified in the recent literature
• Assessing “Central Auditory Processing” in clinical practice – Mark Laureyns
– Both Localization and Binaural Masking Release are aspects for which we have useful assessment procedures for clinical practice - Both can be assessed unaided and aided
– This procedure for Binaural Masking Release procedure taps into multiple aspects of auditory performance

• Audibility – MCL for running speech
• Speech in Noise – SNR when you start missing words (perception!)
• Binaural Masking Release – Central Auditory Processing
• Binaural Masking Release is related to Localisation