Conference Announcement
A landmark gathering will challenge the profession to expand what successful hearing care can mean.
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Date June 7 and 8, 2027 |
Venue Rajen Kilachand Center, Boston University |
Location Boston, Massachusetts |
The future of hearing healthcare will not be defined by technology alone. It will be shaped by how effectively clinicians connect scientific discovery, advanced hearing technology, clinical expertise, and the real world experiences of the people they serve.
That important conversation will take center stage at the 13th International Adult Aural Rehabilitation Conference, scheduled for June 7 and 8, 2027, at Boston University’s Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering in Boston, Massachusetts. The conference theme, “Bridge to the Future: Transforming Hearing Healthcare by Connecting Science, Technology, Clinical Practice, and the Lived Experience,” reflects a profession that is ready to look beyond narrow definitions of hearing treatment and toward a more complete vision of healthy aging.
Dr. Keith Darrow, Ph.D., CCC-A, neuroscientist, clinical audiologist, author, educator, and Director of Audiology Research at Hearing & Brain Centers of America, has been selected as one of the conference’s invited speakers. His presentation, “From Hearing Care to Brain Care: Expanding Aural Rehabilitation Through Cognitive Health and Wellness,” will explore how hearing professionals can broaden aural rehabilitation to address cognition, social connection, physical activity, wellness, and long term quality of life.
For Dr. Darrow, the invitation is both an honor and an opportunity to help advance a conversation he believes the profession urgently needs.
A respected international forum for aural rehabilitation
The International Adult Aural Rehabilitation Conference has been held every two years since its first gathering in Portland, Maine, in 2001. Its return for a thirteenth meeting represents more than another professional event. It provides a focused forum where researchers, clinicians, educators, technology leaders, and people with hearing difficulties can exchange ideas about the next generation of adult hearing rehabilitation.
The 2027 conference is intentionally designed to connect perspectives that can too easily remain separated. Scientific research can reveal new possibilities, but those possibilities must be translated into practical clinical care. Technology can improve access and performance, but it must address the needs, preferences, and daily realities of patients. Clinical protocols can create consistency, but the lived experience reminds professionals that outcomes are personal and extend far beyond an audiogram.
Boston University’s official conference announcement identifies three invited speakers: Dr. Darrow; Kathy Cienkowski, Ph.D., an audiologist, researcher, and educator whose work includes adult aural rehabilitation; and Shari Eberts, a hearing health advocate, author, and voice for people living with hearing loss. Together, their participation reflects the conference’s commitment to bringing science, clinical practice, and patient experience into the same room.
The program will also include contributed presentations, posters, and panel discussions featuring professionals and individuals with hearing difficulties. This inclusive approach is especially meaningful because the strongest future for hearing healthcare will be built with patients, not simply for them.
Why “hearing care to brain care” matters
Traditional hearing care has often concentrated on detecting hearing loss, improving audibility, fitting technology, and helping patients communicate more effectively. Those remain essential goals. Dr. Darrow’s presentation will invite attendees to consider what becomes possible when those goals are placed inside a larger health and wellness framework.
Hearing is not an isolated function. Listening relies on attention, memory, processing speed, and the brain’s ability to organize complex sound. Hearing difficulties can also affect relationships, confidence, participation, and social connection. When people withdraw from conversations or activities because listening has become exhausting, the consequences may reach into many areas of life.
Expanding from hearing care to brain care does not mean claiming that hearing treatment alone prevents or cures dementia. It means recognizing that hearing health is part of a larger network of modifiable factors that may influence how well people function and age. It also means giving clinicians a broader set of questions to ask: Is the patient staying socially engaged? Are cognitive concerns present? Is the treatment plan supporting communication in meaningful environments? Are physical activity, nutrition, health monitoring, and continued learning part of the patient’s broader wellness strategy?
These questions do not replace excellent audiology. They make it more complete.
Translating cognitive science into clinical action
Dr. Darrow is well positioned to lead this discussion. He earned his Ph.D. through the joint Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology. His background includes research at the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and a fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Today, he combines research, teaching, clinical leadership, and professional education with a focus on the connections among hearing, tinnitus, cognition, and healthy aging.
During his presentation, Dr. Darrow plans to discuss the integration of cognitive screening, cognitive rehabilitation, wellness strategies, and active patient engagement into hearing healthcare. The practical emphasis is important. A scientific idea becomes valuable to patients only when it can be translated responsibly into a clinical conversation, an appropriate referral, a measurable goal, or a sustainable daily behavior.
Cognitive screening can help identify concerns that may deserve further evaluation; it is not a diagnosis. Rehabilitation can include more than device settings; it may involve communication training, structured follow up, family participation, realistic goal setting, and strategies that support continued engagement. Wellness counseling can reinforce the importance of movement, nutrition, cardiovascular health, social activity, and cognitive challenge while respecting the clinician’s scope of practice and collaborating with other healthcare professionals.
This is a shift from a transaction centered on a device to a relationship centered on the person’s long term function.
The relevance of the U.S. POINTER Study
Dr. Darrow has also indicated that his presentation will include evidence based insights from the U.S. Study to Protect Brain Health Through Lifestyle Intervention to Reduce Risk, commonly known as U.S. POINTER.
Published in JAMA in July 2025, U.S. POINTER was a large, two year randomized clinical trial involving more than 2,100 adults ages 60 to 79 who were at increased risk for cognitive decline. Both study groups participated in multidomain lifestyle interventions focused on physical activity, nutrition, cognitive and social challenge, and health monitoring. Cognition improved in both groups, with greater benefit observed in the more structured program, which provided additional intensity, accountability, and support.
The study did not test a hearing intervention and should not be presented as proof that hearing treatment prevents dementia. Its relevance to aural rehabilitation lies in its multidomain model. U.S. POINTER reinforces the idea that brain health support is not built around a single activity or isolated recommendation. Structure, coaching, engagement, and attention to several modifiable health behaviors can matter.
That finding has clear implications for a patient centered hearing practice. Aural rehabilitation can become a powerful point of connection, one in which patients receive not only technology, but also education, accountability, communication support, appropriate screening, referrals, and encouragement to remain physically, cognitively, and socially active.
From better hearing to better living
The title of Dr. Darrow’s presentation captures the broader opportunity: hearing care can be a gateway to brain care, but only when the profession defines success around the patient’s life.
A patient may want to hear a spouse without asking for repetition. Another may want to return to a weekly card game, participate confidently in meetings, enjoy worship services, or feel safe and connected in family gatherings. These are hearing goals, but they are also social, emotional, cognitive, and quality of life goals.
A broader model of aural rehabilitation asks clinicians to measure what matters to the patient and to remain actively involved after technology is fitted. It prioritizes treatment adherence, counseling, family engagement, outcome measurement, and ongoing adjustments. It also encourages hearing professionals to collaborate with physicians, neuropsychologists, physical therapists, nutrition professionals, and other members of a patient’s care team when appropriate.
In that model, the hearing professional’s role becomes more, not less, important. Technology may continue to advance rapidly, but successful rehabilitation still depends on trusted relationships, careful interpretation, coaching, and individualized care.
Participation that reflects the conference mission
Dr. Darrow’s contribution will extend beyond delivering a single presentation. By participating alongside researchers, clinicians, educators, advocates, and people living with hearing loss, he will help connect laboratory science with the day to day realities of patient care. The conference’s planned panel discussions and inclusive format create opportunities for ideas to be examined from multiple perspectives.
That exchange matters. A brain health centered model must be scientifically responsible, clinically practical, and meaningful to patients. It must avoid overstating evidence while still acting on what is known. It must use technology without allowing technology to define the entire treatment relationship. And it must invite the patient’s goals, concerns, and lived experience into every stage of care.
Dr. Darrow has expressed his gratitude to the Hearing Rehabilitation Foundation, Inc., and specifically to Geoff Plant and Claire Bernstein, Ph.D., for the invitation. His enthusiasm reflects the significance of the gathering: this is precisely the kind of multidisciplinary conversation that can move the profession forward.
Building the bridge to the future
The 13th International Adult Aural Rehabilitation Conference arrives at a pivotal time. The population is aging. Awareness of cognitive health is increasing. Hearing technologies are becoming more sophisticated and more accessible. At the same time, patients are asking for care that is personal, evidence informed, and connected to their broader health goals.
The profession’s next chapter will require more than better devices. It will require a more expansive understanding of rehabilitation, one that helps people hear, participate, connect, and pursue healthier lives.
Dr. Keith Darrow’s presentation, “From Hearing Care to Brain Care,” is designed to help clinicians imagine and implement that future. By bringing cognitive screening, wellness strategies, active engagement, and multidomain brain health evidence into the aural rehabilitation conversation, he will challenge attendees to consider a simple but transformative question:
What if the ultimate goal of hearing care is not merely helping patients hear more sound, but helping them live longer, healthier, more connected lives?
That is a bridge worth building.