O sentido atribuído à audição e às condições de vida por idosos institucionalizados com e sem deficiência auditiva

Abstract

The aim of this study was to research the meanings attributed to audition and the conditions of life of the aged people with and without hearing deficiency. It was also with the aim of this study to make the reader aware with respect to the universe in which the research is inserted. A revision in the existing readings was made, with emphasis on hearing deficiency and the quality of life when ageing, in the aged in institutions and in the universe of the oral history. Method used: It was employed the procedure in the thematic oral history, having as participants 17, aged people in institutions, of both genders and over 60 years of age. The participants were distributed in two groups: G1 with impaired hearing and G2 without hearing deficiency, after exams of pure-tone audiometer. The number of participants was reduced to eight, during the procedure of data collecting, once it was taken into account the saturation, or the repetition of the information in their statement which took to the exhaustion of data under analysis. The results revealed that great part of the aged interviewed had a good quality of life even the ones with impaired hearing showed that they found a way to overcome that problem and live in a creative way taking their own decisions. It was found out that just a small minority referred that the impaired hearing produced some restriction to his or her personal and social life, showing that isolation, anger, frustration and dependence are expected reactions in the aged with loss of hearing however they are not compulsory and nor generalized. Conclusion: These data reveal that there was a sensible change in the meaning attributed to audition in the conditions of life in the two groups of aged studied, which valued the active ageing, minimizing the impact of the hearing deficiency in their lives