The Hard of Hearing Patient

Editor's note: From its first issue in 1900 through to the present day, AJN has unparalleled archives detailing nurses' work and lives over more than a century. These articles not only chronicle nursing's growth as a profession within the context of the events of the day, but they also reveal prevailing societal attitudes about women, health care, and human rights. Today's nursing school curricula rarely include nursing's history, but it's a history worth knowing. To this end, From the AJN Archives highlights articles selected to fit today's topics and times.This February 1944 article is by Louise Neuschutz, who wrote extensively in AJN and elsewhere about the hard of hearing, deafness, and lipreading. Here she discusses the ways in which nurses can help "war-deafened men… returning steadily from the various fronts." Her guidance is critically relevant more than 70 years later, and we would do well today to follow her practical tips for communicating with the hearing impaired.A hearing deficit can magnify the stresses of hospitalization and even affect patient outcomes. In this issue, Amy Funk and colleagues explore the potential hearing-related problems of hospitalized patients in their qualitative study, "Understanding the Hospital Experience of Older Adults with Hearing Impairment."