Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Peer-reviewed study (randomised controlled pilot)

The HEAR-VA Pilot Study: hearing assistance provided to older adults in the emergency department

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/chodosh-2021-hear-va/ · record checked 10 October 2026

  • Chodosh J, Goldfeld K, Weinstein BE, Radcliffe K, Burlingame M, Dickson V, Grudzen C, Sherman S, Smilowitz J, Blustein J
  • Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 69(4):1071-1078

Independent (VA New York Harbor Healthcare System, NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the City University of New York; funding is not stated in the abstract read)

Summary

A randomised pilot in a veterans' emergency department in which half of 133 older patients with hearing difficulty were lent a personal amplifier for their visit.

Key findings

  • 133 veterans aged 60 and over (98.3% male, mean age 76.4) attending the emergency department of the Manhattan VA Medical Center, likely to be discharged home, who said they had difficulty hearing or scored 10 or more on the Hearing Handicap Inventory-Survey, were randomised 1:1; the intervention group received a personal amplifier (Williams Sound Pocketalker 2.0) to use during the visit.
  • Across all items of a six-item hearing and understanding questionnaire, the intervention group reported a better experience: 75% agreed or strongly agreed that they understood what was said without effort, against 56% of controls, and 75% against 36% said clinicians gave them an explanation of their presenting problems.
  • 3% of the intervention group had an emergency department revisit within 3 days, against 9.0% of controls.
  • The authors conclude that personal amplifiers may be an important adjunct to emergency care for older patients but need validation in a larger, more definitive randomised trial.

Limits

Read from the abstract only (on PubMed); the full text is paywalled, so methods, statistical tests and confidence intervals were not checked. A small single-site pilot among veterans, almost all men; outcomes were self-reported and the comparison was with no device. The date is the online publication; the issue is April 2021.

Read the original

agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jgs.17037

Link checked . We link to the original and do not host copies.

Cited in

Cite this source

Chodosh J, Goldfeld K, Weinstein BE, Radcliffe K, Burlingame M, Dickson V, Grudzen C, Sherman S, Smilowitz J, Blustein J. The HEAR-VA Pilot Study: hearing assistance provided to older adults in the emergency department. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 69(4):1071-1078. 11 February 2021. https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jgs.17037 (accessed 10 October 2026).

The accessed date is when this library last checked the link; use the date you read it. To point readers to this summary instead, link to https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/chodosh-2021-hear-va/

Every finding here cites its source, and who funded each source is labelled. This site does not recommend products. Found an error or a missing study? Suggest a correction.