Ida Fellow Viviana Maller recently presented a poster on the emotional impact of hearing loss at the 2013 World Congress of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies in Peru.
As a psychologist and cognitive therapist, Viviana brings a different perspective to the hearing care profession. Her private practice is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she specializes in counseling adults with hearing loss and providing group audiological rehabilitation workshops for adults with acquired hearing loss.
Viviana’s poster at the World Congress explored the relationship between hearing loss acquired in adulthood with the occurrence of depression and anxiety symptoms. A questionnaire was given to 18 adults between the ages of 40 to 80 years old with moderate to severe hearing loss. The results showed a correlation between hearing loss and the onset of symptoms associated with anxiety and depression.
Many psychologists and cognitive specialists at the World Congress were amazed with the poster’s findings, according to Viviana. In her conversations, she learned that many cognitive specialists and psychologists had not considered hearing loss as a contributor to symptoms of stress and depression. In addition, many were unaware of the value and importance of using a group rehabilitation approach to deal with these symptoms rather than applying an individual rehabilitation program.
“In Argentina, providing psychological counseling to individuals is the primary treatment employed for those people that have a complex or severe case of depression or anxiety regarding their hearing loss. We find that group programs actually represent a better approach to alleviating these symptoms for this population,” states Viviana Maller. “In a group workshop, we work closely with communication skills, provide information about hearing loss, and teach participants how to deal with stress in challenging situations. We show them how it is possible to handle the stress associated with hearing loss and manage the demands of paying attention for many hours in the day. We teach techniques that incorporate meditation and relaxation to help participants deal with the stress associated with living with hearing loss.”
Viviana intends to follow up on her poster’s research with a collaborative research project with Ida Fellows Jean-Pierre Gagne at the University of Montreal and Deborah Ferrari at the University of São Paulo. They plan to conduct a qualitative research study using interviews to better understand the underpinnings of social stigma and how it manifests itself in different forms in the populations of Brazil, Canada, and Argentina.
In addition to providing group rehabilitation programs for patients, Viviana has conducted numerous workshops for health care professionals and audiologists on the importance of patient motivation and the psychosocial impact of hearing loss. Starting this fall, Viviana will run a series of workshops for Gaes, a Spanish private dispenser chain operating in Argentina, to train 40 of their audiologists on the Ida Motivation Tools. Viviana has also conducted similar workshops for audiologists associated with the Mutualidad Argentina de Hipoacusicos, the largest nonprofit organization in Argentina working to improve the quality of life of hearing impaired persons.
As a teacher at the Universidad Maimonides, Viviana has also conducted workshops to raise awareness of hearing loss among doctors and other health care professionals across Argentina. She recently partnered with the Rocca Rehabilitation Hospital to provide courses to geriatric physicians on hearing loss in order to help them create awareness among patients and inform patients how they can take action on their hearing. She has conducted five such workshops at public hospitals in Argentina and she intends to hold similar workshops on an annual basis.
Viviana Maller is the founder of “Adultos que Oyen Menos,” an organization to raise awareness of hearing loss acquired in adulthood and to provide and promote tools to improve their lives. She is also a Professor of Health Psychology at the Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires. Viviana attended the Ida Institute seminar series on patient-centered care in 2013 and serves as the moderator of the Spanish Speakers Discussion Group in the Ida Forum.