Thank you very much, Pam.
My name is Jean Holden, and my colleague here is Valerie Spino. We represent the Hearing Health Alliance of Canada. We are representing a number of groups. We are representing consumers, hearing health care professionals, the hearing industry and foundations across Canada. On behalf of the Hearing Health Alliance of Canada, we thank the committee for inviting us to share our perspective about the important and often overlooked issue of hearing health.
In our meetings with some members of the House of Commons and Senate, some related personal experiences of how a mother or a grandmother cut off regular communication with family and friends, because of unmanaged hearing loss. This is like most people with hearing loss, who delay seven to 10 years before addressing their hearing challenges. Stigma, access to health care and the lack of understanding of the impact of unmanaged hearing loss in the public and the health care system contribute to this delay.
Hearing loss is one of the most prevalent chronic conditions affecting senior Canadians. Today, 78% of Canada's 4.8 million seniors have measurable hearing loss. By 2031, Statistics Canada projects that 5.1 million women will be seniors, so we can predict that almost four million senior women could have measurable hearing loss. This will have serious implications for the health of, and the health care services provided to, senior women.
Despite evidence-based research and statistics that show that hearing loss is widespread, with a serious impact on the health of Canadians, at a significant cost to government programs, hearing health remains a low public and health policy priority.
Women often experience gradual hearing loss as they enter their senior years. It's common for them to slowly withdraw from their social activities with family, friends and community, because it becomes embarrassing and stressful, and takes a lot of energy to cope in situations where they cannot participate and engage as before.
It is no surprise that unmanaged hearing loss is strongly linked to depression, anxiety and loss of self-esteem. Those who are socially isolated often reduce their exercise levels, contributing to other health conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. Research also strongly links unmanaged hearing loss in seniors with the onset of cognitive decline earlier, by two to seven years.
Most people are unaware that unmanaged hearing loss is significantly linked to the increase in risk of falls. The risk increases with the severity of hearing loss. Falls are the leading cause of injury-related hospitalizations among seniors. The most common injury is hip fracture, which occurs more often in women. It is very difficult for a senior woman to recover from a hip fracture. Many are admitted to costly long-term care facilities, and between 20% and 40% of seniors with a hip fracture die within one year.
For those with hearing loss, there is also a risk of reduced safety and security, with the inability to detect alarms, traffic and other audible threats in their daily living activities. It is clear that good communication is needed among doctors, other health care providers and patients, in order for patients to benefit from access to health care. Poor communication can cause mistakes in diagnoses—some of them are very serious—and mistakes made by patients when they fail to understand instructions from the health care provider.
I'm going to ask Val to continue. She will be speaking in French for our French-language members and then she will summarize our recommendations in English at the end.