Esther Oh
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Medicine & Clinical Research
People living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias often develop symptoms that go beyond memory loss: agitation, apathy, depression and disturbed sleep. Up to 97% experience at least one of these neuropsychiatric symptoms at some point.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
Neuroscience
- Topics
hearing loss
neuropsychiatric symptoms
Alzheimer's disease
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Refine a hearing care intervention for neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia by consulting clinical experts and end users, aligning it with theoretical frameworks and the latest evidence, and adapting it for delivery in settings including the home.
- Test the preliminary efficacy of the revised hearing care intervention, which uses over-the-counter hearing devices, in a randomized controlled trial among older adults with cognitive impairment and their care partners.
- Characterize why responses to the intervention vary between participants and identify mechanisms linking improved hearing to reduced agitation, apathy, depression and sleep disturbance, using a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach.
More about the research
They are among the hardest parts of the illness for families, and they track with faster decline in thinking and daily function, worse quality of life, heavier caregiver burden and earlier nursing home placement. Non-drug approaches are recommended, yet psychotropic medications are still widely prescribed and carry real harms. Hearing loss also becomes more common with age, and it frequently goes unrecognized in people who already have cognitive impairment. This work asks whether treating hearing loss can reduce these behavioral and emotional symptoms.
Why it matters
Neuropsychiatric symptoms are a major public health burden in dementia, driving caregiver strain, nursing home admission and the continued use of psychotropic drugs with known risks. Because over-the-counter hearing devices are relatively affordable and accessible, a hearing care strategy that reduces these symptoms could offer older adults with cognitive impairment and their care partners a non-drug option, and could support treating hearing as a routine part of dementia care.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lee Kehoe
University of Rochester, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Evaluate whether 8 weekly sessions of Dyadic Life Review therapy, added to usual care, reduce psychological distress in caregivers of older adults with AD/ADRD and stage III–IV cancer, in a 60-dyad randomized trial.
Amy Rodriguez
Emory University, GA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Harmonize and scale behavioral and digital tools that measure lifestyle risk factors, so participants across the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center are described in consistent, detailed ways.
Marcia Hay-McCutcheon
University of Alabama, AL·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine an effective way to train pharmacy technicians in rural Alabama and Mississippi pharmacies to provide over-the-counter hearing aids, using a stepped-wedge clinical trial in which four groups start training at staggered times.
The school
Johns Hopkins University: 100 labs on PI Pages, $4.1B a year on research, 622 research doctorates a year.
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