Telemedicine can help those with hearing issues.
A study by Jaime A.B. Wilson and M. Gawain Wells found that the shortage of mental health care for hearing-impaired people could be alleviated with the use of telehealth technology. As technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, telehealth services such as videoconferencing have emerged as a solution for this highly underserved population.
About a quarter of hearing-impaired individuals have additional disabilities and a high probability of complex mental health needs, according to a review by Johannes Fellinger, Daniel Holzinger, and Robert Pollard.
Because of these facts, it is important that we invest in ways to treat people with mental illness without any access to care, especially those who are hearing impaired.
Wilson and Wells’ study concluded that hearing-impaired individuals appear “to have every reason to benefit from the use of telehealth to receive mental health services,” because:
- the principal mode of communication for the population is visual
- clinicians use visual communication to gather most diagnostic and treatment information
- telehealth is a tool that can reach people regardless of where they live