The quality of communication between doctors and their older patients affects the patients’ quality of care, but most research on doctor-patient communication usually overlooks hearing impairment—a prevalent, important and remediable influence on the quality of doctor-patient communication.

New York University researchers reviewed published studies on doctor-patient communication that involved patients at least 60 years old. Only 16 of the 67 studies (23.9 percent) included any mention of hearing loss. Four studies specifically excluded people with hearing loss.

Three studies reported an association between hearing loss and quality of care, but researchers in only one of those studies offered any kind of hearing assistance to see if it would improve communication.

Not surprisingly, that one study found that hearing assistance improved patients’ understanding.

The findings, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, suggest that adding strategies to enhance communication (see “Amplifying Patient Care”) can improve the quality of clinical encounters. An accompanying editorial suggests that these strategies can be low- or no-cost and simple, such as minimizing ambient noise, speaking face-to-face, and printing patient education materials in large print.