A new book on the hearing loss journey has been released. The Experience of Hearing Loss: Journey through aural rehabilitation is edited by Ida fellow Vinaya Manchaiah and Ida Faculty member Berth Danermark. The book presents the concept of the patient journey, broken up by its different phases, and uses case studies to illustrate how people with hearing loss have adjusted practically and emotionally based on their experiences.
“This is a popular science book written to address a broad audience including doctors, allied healthcare professionals, sociologists, and so on,” says Vinaya. “This will also be a very good resource for entry level audiologists to learn about the process that people with hearing loss may go through. However, we also believe this can be a good read for practicing audiologists to get a different perspective and can have some influence on the way they practice.”
Vinaya and Berth use Ida’s Patient Journey as a starting point, adding additional phases to the journey to provide a comprehensive picture of the person with hearing loss’s experience. The book also places a strong focus on how hearing loss affects communication partners and again uses case studies to explain the concept of the parallel partner journey and its different phases.
“I have always felt audiological management is not complete without appropriate rehabilitation,” says Vinaya, explaining how the book came about. “I started researching on the idea of the patient journey after attending an Ida Institute seminar in 2009. My initial work was in collaboration with late Prof. Dafydd Stephens. Following my thesis, I discussed with Prof. Berth Danermark the idea of developing it as a book.”
He and Berth then began contacting experts from around the world to invite them to contribute to the book and share their insights on the patient journey. The result is a thorough overview of the patient journey with contributions from leading researchers.
Those researchers include the Ida Institute’s Senior Anthropologist, Hans Henrik Philipsen, and former Senior Audiologist (and current Advisory Board member) Melanie Gregory, who collaborated on the chapter, “Practice Implications of the Patient Journey Model.” A number of other Ida collaborators have also contributed to the book, including Research Committee members Joseph Montano and Sophia Kramer, faculty member Samuel Trychin, Patricia McCarthy and Rebecca Kelly-Campbell.
The Experience of Hearing Loss is available through Routledge.