Why do Older Adults Delay in Seeking Help for Hearing Loss

Despite the fact that disabling, age related hearing loss or presbycusis affects around 360 million people globally World Health Organisation, there is quite often a lengthy delay between the time an individual first notices that they are having hearing difficulties and when they actually seek help from a hearing professional [1]. So why is it that people take so long to accept that their hearing is impaired and investigate the potential solutions? The purpose of this paper is to discover, by means of a literature review, some of the barriers that an individual may encounter during the journey of ‘ownership’ of their hearing loss, and to determine how, once the decision has been made to address their hearing problems, the interaction between client and professional can facilitate or impede solution finding.