The role of the audiologist facing language changes of hearing, balance, speech and swallowing: a literature review

This study aims to presenting the main speech pathology found in the elderly, in addition to discussing the role of the audiologist facing this change. This is a study of bibliographical review. O bibliographic research was conducted in the access of the Virtual Health Library network. The inclusion criteria for articles were: studies in their entirety, in Portuguese, in the period 2007-2012 and which embraced the research theme. There were selected 10 studies for meeting the inclusion criteria proposed, constituting the sample for this was observed that as the objective of these publications, the authors sought to study, mostly describing the related voice changes or presbyphonia; difficulties in functions chewing, in equilibrium, with the presence of falls, changes in hearing acuity, auditory processing, tinnitus and epidemiological, socioeconomic and etymological senile changes and / or healthy. It was concluded that with aging there are several speech pathologies found in humans which makes it important and necessary the role of the speech therapist in the health care of the elderly.