About Adult Hearing

Adult Hearing is a professional education platform that aims to increase awareness via the latest clinical evidence to reach an agreed standard of care for adults with hearing loss.

The site is formed in collaboration with members of the Delphi Consensus Group as well as the Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee.

Purpose of Adult Hearing

Improve access to cochlear implants for people with hearing loss and educate and empower hearing health practitioners to identify and treat CI candidates.

Goals

Provide an interface to keep professionals up-to-date with scientific information and best practice examples for treating adult hearing loss.
Advance cochlear implant therapy as a sustainable counselling option, increasing the likelihood that a CI candidate will be evaluated by a specialist.
Create an online platform to provide access to continuous learning opportunities and enable community engagement, leading to increased awareness and confidence in CI solutions.

The Delphi panel, Steering Committee, and Chair

The Delphi panel comprised clinical experts in cochlear implantation, from the fields of otology, audiology, and hearing science, who were to take part in the development of the consensus statements. The Chair of the Delphi panel was Professor Craig A Buchman (Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA).

Four clinical experts were identified by the Chair to form the steering committee, while also being the first members of the Delphi panel:

Professor René H Gifford (Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA);
Professor David Haynes (Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA);
Professor Thomas Lenarz (Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany); and
Professor Gerard O’Donoghue (University of Nottingham and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK).

The steering committee was responsible for designing and finalising the Delphi consensus protocol, identifying candidates to complete the Delphi panel, and approving the Systematic Review areas of interest for the study.

All members of the steering committee and the Delphi panel, except the Chair, were able to vote in the consensus process. Voting on the draft consensus statements took place over three rounds.

Members of the Delphi Panel are as follows

Dr Oliver Adunka, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
Dr Allison Biever, AuD, Rocky Mountain Ear Center, Englewood, CO, USA
Professor Robert Briggs, The University of Melbourne; Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital; Royal Melbourne Hospital, Australia
Dr Matthew Carlson, Mayo Clinic School of Medicine, Rochester, MN, USA
Dr Pu Dai, PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
Professor Colin Driscoll, Mayo Clinic School of Medicine, Rochester, MN, USA
Dr Howard Francis, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA
Professor Bruce Gantz, University of Iowa Health Care, Iowa City, IA, USA
Dr Richard Gurgel, University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Dr Marlan Hansen, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Associate Professor Meredith Holcomb, University of Miami, FL, USA
Dr Eva Karltorp, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
Professor Milind Kirtane, Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, India
Ms Jannine Larky, Stanford University School of Medicine, CA, USA
Professor Emmanuel Mylanus, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Dr Thomas Roland, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
Professor Shakeel Saeed, University College Hospital; National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery; Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, London, UK
Professor Henryk Skarzynski, Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing, Warsaw, Poland
Professor Piotr Skarzynski, Department of Teleaudiology and Screening, World Hearing Center, Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing, Warsaw; Department of Heart Failure and Cardiac Rehabilitation, Medical University of Warsaw; Institute of Sensory Organs, Kajetany, Poland
Dr Mark Syms, Arizona Hearing Center, Phoenix, AZ, USA
Associate Professor Holly Teagle, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Professor Paul Van De Heyning, Antwerp University Hospital, University of Antwerp, Edegem, Belgium
Professor Christophe Vincent, Centre Hospitalier Regional, Universitaire de Lille, France
Professor Hao Wu, 9th People’s Hospital, Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
Professor Tatsuya Yamasoba, The University of Tokyo Hospital, Japan
Professor Terry Zwolan, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

What is the Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee (CAPAC)?

The Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee was formed to ensure the cochlear implant user’s voice was considered during the Delphi consensus process. The committee members had a non-voting role but were asked to comment on the statements at each round of voting, to provide their views on the statements from the user and their professional organisation’s viewpoint.

The full summary report of their finds can be found here.

Robert Mandara, 1st Vice President from the European Association of Cochlear Implant Users (EURO-CIU), talks to us about his journey with hearing loss, EURO-CIU’s function, as well as their position as it relates to bilateral cochlear implantation

Listen to Leo De Raeve, Director ONICI and Scientific Adviser to the board of European Association of Cochlear Implant Users (EUROCIU) discuss the Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee and its objectives.

Who are the members of the committee?

Co-Chair CAPAC, Barbara Kelley, MA, Executive Director, Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA)
Co-Chair CAPAC, Harald Seidler, MD, Deutschen Schwerhörigenbunde (DSB) (GR) – Representative of the International Federation of Hard of Hearing People (IFHOH) and immediate past-President of the German Association of the Hard of Hearing (1996-2019)
Leo De Raeve, PhD, Director ONICI and Scientific Adviser to the board of European Association of Cochlear Implant Users (EUROCIU)
Professor Bernard Fraysse, President, International Federation of Otorhinolaryngological Societies (IFOS)
Darja Pajk, OT, Treasurer, European Federation of Hard of Hearing People (EFHOH)
Donna Sorkin, MA, Executive Director, American Cochlear Implant Alliance (ACIA)
Professor George Tavartkiladze, MD, PhD, Secretary-General, International Society of Audiology (ISA)

Barbara Kelley, Executive Director of the Hearing Loss Association of America, explains the role of HLAA and the significance of the Consensus paper in addressing hearing loss in adults.

Listen to Leo De Raeve, one of the Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee members, discuss the EUROCIU and its objectives.

What is the purpose of the Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee?

The purpose of the Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee is to provide a bridge between the CI Delphi consensus process and the international organisations needed to help with the dissemination and real-world acceptance of the consensus statements. The Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee had the opportunity to review draft statements and provide suggestions and advice on the relevance of the statements in a non-voting capacity. They were also asked to give insights on dissemination and ideas to promote real-world acceptance, with a focus on the user experience.

Advocacy for better CI access

Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee organisations already lead the way on advocacy and raising awareness of CI to help more adults gain access to the hearing technology they need. The Consumer and Professional Advocacy Committee Co-Chairs recently lead an international meeting of advocacy organizations to discuss sharing resources on advocacy.

Barbara Kelley, Executive Director of the Hearing Loss Association of America explains the function and purpose of the HLAA as well as some of the challenges faced currently within the community.

Professor Milan Profant explains the purpose of IFOS and talks through the challenges and necessary steps required to address change. Professor Profant. is Secretary General of the International Federation of Otorhinolaryngological Societies (IFOS) and based at the University Hospital in Bratislava, Slovakia.

We need your help. It’s a team effort

We need everybody’s opinion, we need everybody’s help in mobilising support, to drive forward an agenda that is favourable, for hearing impaired patients, especially those for whom cochlear implantation may be appropriate. And who at the present time are denied that intervention.Globally, we all have to unite to do this work, and to make sure that the interventions for hearing impairment are more readily available, for the millions of people who at the present time are denied it.

Professor Gerard O’ Donoghue, steering committee member of the Consensus Delphi Process and Professor of Otology and Neurotology, University of Nottingham, UK.