Older adults with communication disabilities and their use of communication support at doctor's visits: a nationally representative study.

PURPOSE: Older adults with communication disabilities (CDs) experience barriers to receiving care and face a paucity of accommodations for their disability. Utilizing someone that supports communication with healthcare providers (communication support persons) may be a way that this group self-supports their disability. We examined if this utilization was independently associated with CDs among older adults. We also sought to understand if socioeconomic factors were associated with utilization. METHODS: We used the 2015 National Health and Aging Trends Survey (NHATS) to conduct a cross-sectional analysis of Medicare beneficiaries (n = 5954) with functional hearing, expressive, or cognitive difficulties. We calculated a weighted, population prevalence and an adjusted prevalence ratio (APR) controlling for sociodemographic, health and other disability factors. RESULTS: Among community dwelling older adults, having CDs was associated with higher utilization of a communication support person at medical visits (APR: 1.41 [CI: 1.27 - 1.57]). Among adults with CDs, Black adults and women had lower levels of utilization as compared to White adults and men, respectively. CONCLUSION: Communication support persons may be a way that older adults with CDs self-support their disability. However, not all older adults with CDs bring someone and variation by social factors could suggest that unmet support needs exist.

Over half of older adults with communication disabilities do not utilize a communication support person at doctors' visits, and utilization differs by race and gender.Rehabilitation professionals should educate their older adult patients with communication disabilities on this practice and collaborate with speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and audiologists (AuDs) on how to accommodate this population's disability.SLPs and AuDs can directly train support persons, other rehabilitation professionals, and physicians on accommodating these patients. For patients who don't bring a support person, SLPs and AuDs can plan alternative communication disability supports to use in healthcare settings, so that all older adults with CDs can equitably access their healthcare.

How Health Care Organizations Are Implementing Disability Accommodations for Effective Communication: A Qualitative Study.

BACKGROUND: Prior studies have documented that, despite federal mandates, clinicians infrequently provide accommodations that enable equitable health care engagement for patients with communication disabilities. To date, there has been a paucity of empirical research describing the organizational approach to implementing these accommodations. The authors asked US health care organizations how they were delivering these accommodations in the context of clinical care, what communication accommodations they provided, and what disability populations they addressed. METHODS: In this study, 19 qualitative interviews were conducted with disability coordinators representing 15 US health care organizations actively implementing communication accommodations. A conventional qualitative content analysis approach was used to code the data and derive themes. RESULTS: The authors identified three major themes related to how US health care organizations are implementing the provision of this service: (1) Operationalizing the delivery of communication accommodations in health care required executive leadership support and preparatory work at clinic and organization levels; (2) The primary focus of communication accommodations was sign language interpreter services for Deaf patients and, secondarily, other hearing- and visual-related accommodations; and (3) Providing communication accommodations for patients with speech and language and cognitive disabilities was less frequent, but when done involved more than providing a single aid or service. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that, in addition to individual clinician efforts, there are organization-level factors that affect consistent provision of communication accommodations across the full range of communication disabilities. Future research should investigate these factors and test targeted implementation strategies to promote equitable access to health care for all patients with communication disabilities.

Prevalence and sociodemographic characteristics of US community-dwelling older adults with communication disabilities, using the national health and aging trends survey.

INTRODUCTION: Identifying the population-level prevalence of a disability group is a prerequisite to monitoring their inclusion in society. The prevalence and sociodemographic characteristics of older adults with communication disabilities (CDs) are not well established in the literature. In this study we sought to describe the prevalence and sociodemographic characteristics of community-dwelling older adults experiencing difficulties with understanding others or being understand when communicating in their usual language. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the National Health and Aging Trends Survey (2015), a nationally representative survey of Medicare beneficiaries ages ≥ 65 years old (N = 7,029). We calculated survey weight-adjusted prevalence estimates by mutually exclusive subgroups of no, hearing only, expressive-only, cognitive only, multiple CDs, and an aggregate any-CD prevalence. We described race/ethnicity, age, gender, education, marital status, social network size, federal poverty status, and supplemental insurance for all groups. Pearson's chi-squared statistic was used to compare sociodemographic characteristics between the any-CD and no-CD groups. RESULTS: An estimated 25.3% (10.7 million) of community-dwelling older adults in the US experienced any-CDs in 2015; approximately 19.9% (8.4 million) experienced only one CD while 5.6% (2.4 million) had multiple. Older adults with CDs were more likely to be of Black race or Hispanic ethnicity as compared to older adults without CDs (Black 10.1 vs. 7.6%; Hispanic: 12.5 vs. 5.4%; P < 0.001). They also had lower educational attainment (Less than high school: 31.0 vs 12.4%; P < 0.001), lower poverty levels (<100% Federal poverty level: 23.5% vs. 11.1%; P < 0.001) and less social supports (Married: 51.3 vs. 61.0%; P < 0.001; Social network ≤ 1 person: 45.3 vs 36.0%; P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The proportion of the older adult population experiencing any-CDs is large and disproportionately represented by underserved sociodemographic groups. These findings support greater inclusion of any-CDs into population-level efforts like national surveys, public health goals, health services, and community research aimed at understanding and addressing the access needs of older adults who have disabilities in communication.

Prologue: Implementation Science in CSD and Starting Where You Are.

In this prologue, we introduce readers to the Forum: Clinicians and Researchers Navigating Implementation Science in CSD. Implementation science (IS), or the study of the adoption of evidence-based practice in real-world settings, is a key area of development in communication sciences and disorders (CSD). The goal of this forum was to show by example how researchers and clinicians are collaborating to begin to apply IS in CSD. This goal culminated in a scoping review of IS in CSD, a tutorial on incorporating IS into clinical practice research, three articles on stakeholder engagement, and three examples of IS studies in CSD included in this forum. We hope this forum helps clinicians and researchers to begin wherever they are in their knowledge and understanding of IS in CSD.

Implementation Science Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders: A Scoping Review.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to complete a scoping review of implementation science (IS) research in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) over time and to determine characteristics of IS research in CSD. METHOD: A scoping review was conducted of PubMed and Education Resources Information Center for sources published in English that (a) included CSD practitioners, (b) addressed IS research, and (c) identified a specific evidence-based practice. Resulting sources were systematically examined for study aim, patient populations, implementation framework utilized, setting of the study, implementation strategy examined, and implementation outcome measured. RESULTS: The majority of the 82 studies that underwent a full-text review (80.5%) were published in 2014 or later. One fourth of the studies were concept papers, and another one fourth focused on context assessment (25.6% of studies, each), 11% focused on designing implementation strategies, and 36.6% focused on testing implementation strategies. The patient population most frequently represented aphasia (21.3%), and most studies (34.4%) were conducted in inpatient medical settings. Nearly half (42.6%) of the nonconcept studies lacked an IS framework. Among implementation strategies identified, approximately one third of studies focused on education and/or training plus another strategy and one fourth focused on education and/or training alone. Implementation outcomes measured typically represented early stages of implementation. CONCLUSIONS: This scoping review of IS research in CSD described the landscape of IS studies in CSD. IS is intersecting with CSD at a rapid rate, especially since 2014. Future IS research in CSD should adopt an implementation framework a priori and consider the broad range of implementation strategies and outcomes to support the uptake of research into typical practice settings.

Receipt of treatment among a nationally representative sample of US adults with communication disorders.

INTRODUCTION: A robust body of literature exists on clinical research outcomes for persons with communication disorders (CD). Comparatively few studies have examined population-based health service outcomes for CD-related services, which capture persons with CDs who may not be part of clinical or administrative data. This is important to describe access to treatment and the factors impacting access. We address this gap, describing four CD-related healthcare outcomes among adults reporting problems with communication (voice, speech, and language): (1) utilization, (2) utilization determinants, (3) professionals providing CD care, and (4) patient-reported service-related outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective, cross-sectional study of community-dwelling adults (≥18 years) in the US self-reporting CD on the nationally representative 2012 National Health Interview Survey. Separate analyses examined adults with voice (n = 1,323), speech (n = 658), and language (n = 396) disorders. We used survey weighted logistic regression to assess the likelihood of treatment, controlling for health, disorder, and sociodemographic characteristics; Pearson's chi square was calculated for other outcomes. RESULTS: An estimated 10% of adults reporting CD described receiving care addressing their CD. Employment, sociodemographic and economic status, health insurance, level of severity, and presence of co-occurring CD were associated with receiving treatment. Over half of respondents with speech and language disorders and less than a fifth of respondents with voice disorders reported receiving care from speech-language pathologists. Adults who received CD-related services reported improvements in activities (52-69% overall) and CD (33-48% overall). CONCLUSIONS: This population-based study shows that general access to CD services is low. Underserved populations have less access to treatment than their counterparts with more resources. Improving access to CD services requires creative interventions addressing patient and provider needs, as well as healthcare system design. Population-based follow-up studies are necessary to track progress toward improving access to care.

Prevalence of Behavioral Health Problems Among Adults With and Without Communication Disabilities.

BACKGROUND: Adults with communication disabilities (CDs) experience poor health and health care outcomes. Few studies have examined behavioral health outcomes among this population. We compare the behavioral health of adults with CDs to their peers without such disabilities. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study examining the 2012 National Health Interview Survey Voice, Speech, and Language Supplement. We compared adults (> 17 years old) with voice only (n = 2169), speech/language (SL) only (n = 730), and speech/language and voice (SLV; n = 450) disabilities to adults without CDs (n = 29,873). Outcomes include behavioral health diagnoses (eg, depression), substance misuse (eg, excessive alcohol or tobacco use), experiences (eg, nonspecific psychological distress), and health care utilization. Unadjusted Pearson's χ2 and adjusted logistic regression analyses controlling for sociodemographic, health, and other disability measures were conducted. RESULTS: Adults with CDs more frequently reported diagnoses (7.1% to 35.9% vs 1.8% to 8.6%), substance misuse (SL only: 15.5% vs 5.5%), and nonspecific psychological distress (SL only: 14.7%; SLV: 22.3% vs 2.3%) compared with adults without CDs (all P < .001). These findings were consistent for all outcomes and in multivariate analyses. Odds ratios ranged from 1.4 (99.7% CI, 1.1-1.7) to 5.0 (99.7% CI, 3.6-6.8). Adults with CDs more frequently endorsed visiting mental health professionals compared with adults without CDs (voice only: 11.4%; SL only: 19.1%; SLV: 23.1%; vs 6.8%, all P < .001), but these differences became nonsignificant in multivariate analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Adults with CDs experience poorer behavioral health and health care outcomes compared with persons without CDs. Barriers to identification and treatment related to CDs must be addressed for persons with CDs.