Hearing Loss Negatively Impacts Vision Rehabilitation Outcomes

Authors suggest vision rehabilitation programs should have a customized approach and be more inclusive to help improve the quality of life for people with dual sensory impairment. Photo: Getty Images. Hearing impairment is estimated to affect over 40% of individuals with vision impairment. When these two disabilities coexist, it’s known as dual sensory impairment. Vision rehabilitation programs rely on tasks like audiobooks and speech-based tools, but they may be less effective for those with hearing impairment. In a recent study presented at ARVO 2025 in Salt Lake City, researchers explored the impacts of hearing impairment on vision rehabilitation outcomes and found that these patients were less likely to experience meaningful improvements in visual ability after vision rehabilitation compared to those with normal hearing, even when controlling for factors like age and health.A secondary analysis was conducted on a prospective cohort dataset from patients seeking outpatient low vision rehabilitation services at 28 clinical centers across the United States between April 2008 and May 2011. Of the 516 patients with available self-reported hearing status, 299 had normal hearing and 217 had hearing impairment. Overall visual ability, obtained as a person-measure score, was assessed using the activity inventory pre- and post-vision rehabilitation. Data on patients’ self-reported hearing status was used to identify the impact of hearing impairment on vision rehabilitation outcomes. Patient-specific clinically important differences between pre- and post-vision rehabilitation visual function were calculated to classify rehabilitation outcomes. Age, gender, visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, psychological status, cognitive status and physical health status were included as covariates.The study found that patients with hearing impairment were older and more likely to have physical impairments, with no significant differences in visual acuity, contrast sensitivity or other comorbidities. Post-rehabilitation retention rates were comparable (68% for normal hearing, 72% for hearing impairment). While the functional ability (person measure obtained by the activity inventory) was similar between normal hearing and hearing impairment groups at baseline, a lower percentage of hearing impairment patients achieved minimum clinically important differences in functional ability after vision rehabilitation (32% normal hearing, 24% hearing impairment), and this difference remained significant after adjusting for covariates. Hearing aid users represented 45% of the hearing impairment patients, but they did not improve the outcome of vision rehabilitation. “These findings highlight the need for tailored approaches in vision rehabilitation to address the unique challenges faced by individuals with both vision and hearing impairments,” the authors concluded in their ARVO abstract. “By better accommodating these needs, vision rehabilitation programs can become more inclusive and effective, improving quality of life for people with dual sensory impairment.”Original abstract content ©2025 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. Obaideen A, Goldstein J, Bradley C, et al. The impacts of hearing impairment on vision rehabilitation outcomes. ARVO 2025 annual meeting.