Hearing Impairment May Hinder Low-Vision Rehabilitation, Research Suggests

When managing low vision patients, take care to inquire about hearing status and initiate interventions when needed. Photo: David Lewerenz, OD. Click image to enlarge. A recent study reports that functional improvement from low vision interventions is less common in vision- and hearing-impaired patients than in vision-impaired patients with normal hearing.Researchers examined the data of 611 adult patients from 28 low vision clinics to “determine the association between hearing impairment and the likelihood of achieving a clinically meaningful functional improvement following vision rehabilitation,” according to a paper on the work in JAMA Ophthalmology. The studied cohort was 66% female and averaged 73 years of age; 253 of the patients had self-reported hearing impairment, while the remaining 358 had normal hearing. The hearing-impaired participants were older on average and showed lower physical health scores. They presented a broad range of eye conditions that caused low vision, though the study provided no details on smoking status or other specific medical issues.The authors gathered baseline data on visual function, cognitive status, mood and physical capabilities through telephone questionnaires before clinical visits began. The rehabilitation services used for the participants “varied by site and provider,” the paper noted, following no single uniform protocol. Follow-ups occurred six to nine months later, during which researchers repeated the visual function assessment (a questionnaire called the Activity Inventory)—also by telephone—with 407 of the original 611 participants.A potential limitation in the study was the possibility that patients “may attribute everyday challenges from hearing loss to vision loss” over the process of answering the questionnaire. The authors noted that “although vision impairment alone can reduce activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living performance, hearing impairment may compound this disability, making it difficult to clearly pinpoint what daily life struggles are caused or worsened by which impairment.“Vision rehabilitation was considered successful,” the researchers wrote, “if the changes in their Activity Inventory ability postrehabilitation exceeded their minimum clinically important difference,” or the smallest possible change found in the Activity Inventory questionnaire. They found that people with hearing loss faced lower odds of success in vision rehab even when they started with similar vision levels and used hearing aids. This outcome suggests that “hearing impairment is independently associated with a lower likelihood of functional gains from vision rehabilitation,” the researchers wrote, calling for rehabilitation clinics to formulate strategies that are more accommodating of patients with multiple sensory impairments.Click here for the journal source. Obaideen A, Goldstein JE, Bradley C, et al. Hearing impairment and visual rehabilitation outcomes. JAMA Ophthalmol. March 12, 2026. [Epub ahead of print].  This article was developed by the editorial staff in conjunction with experts in the field. In the process, AI may have been among the editorial tools used to meet the goals of human editors, who approved all content.