Hearing Loss

Understanding Hearing loss

Hearing helps us to communicate, learn, and stay connected. Hearing loss affects more than just the ability to hear. It impacts physical, mental, and social well-being. Using hearing aids and maintaining social connections can help protect brain health and slow cognitive decline. Auditory deprivation can negatively impact word recognition ability and auditory processing in the brain. The earlier patients seek treatment, the more benefit they’re likely to receive from their hearing aids.

Types of Hearing Loss:

• Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL)
  • This is the most common type of hearing loss. It occurs when there is damage to the inner ear (the cochlea) or the nerve pathways from the inner ear to the brain. Tiny hair cells in the cochlea atrophy due to age, noise damage, or medication. This results in improper transmission of sound signals to the brain. People with SNHL experience both a loss of volume and a loss of audio clarity.
• Conductive hearing loss
  • Conductive hearing loss is the result of obstructions in the outer or middle ear, which prevent sound from entering the inner ear. Voices and sounds may sound faint, distorted, or both. Most conductive hearing loss cases can be treated medically or surgically by our ENT team
• Mixed hearing loss
  • Mixed hearing loss is a combination of sensorineural and conductive hearing loss.

Hearing Self Check

Do you:

• Ask others to repeat themselves?
• Turn the TV or radio to levels others find too loud?
• Have trouble understanding conversation in background noise?
• Have trouble hearing women’s and children’s voices?
• Feel like people mumble or talk softly?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may have a treatable hearing loss that is affecting you more than you realize.

Hearing Health

In the US, more than 50% of adults 60 years or older have clinically meaningful hearing loss¹. One of the most common causes of hearing loss is aging. Presbycusis is age-related hearing loss that is a gradual decrease in hearing as a person ages. 

Hearing loss can be caused by a variety of factors including:

Hearing loss is often very gradual. Many people aren’t immediately aware that there’s an issue.

These conditions increase your risk for hearing loss:

Hearing loss is associated with health conditions such as:

_{1 World Health Organization. (2021, April). Deafness and hearing loss.}