About Hearing Loss
Anything that interrupts the normal process of hearing will impair your hearing. Good news is that almost 90% of hearing impaired patients can be helped by the use of hearing instruments.
Left untreated hearing loss can affect relationships between family and friends and slowly affects that persons quality of life. This is why it is so important to have your hearing tested and to take action.
What is hearing loss?Whenever you experience a reduction in the ability to hear sounds you experience a hearing loss. It might only be temporary or in some instances even permanent. Hearing loss can range from mild to severe. Your highly qualified hearing health care professional can help identify and treat hearing loss.
Types of Hearing Loss
Conductive Hearing Loss
Anything that interrupts the normal process of hearing will impair your hearing. Good news is that almost 90% of hearing impaired patients can be helped by the use of hearing instruments.
Left untreated hearing loss can affect relationships between family and friends and slowly affects that persons quality of life. This is why it is so important to have your hearing tested and to take action.
What is hearing loss?Whenever you experience a reduction in the ability to hear sounds you experience a hearing loss. It might only be temporary or in some instances even permanent. Hearing loss can range from mild to severe. Your highly qualified hearing health care professional can help identify and treat hearing loss.
Types of Hearing Loss
Conductive Hearing Loss
Whenever sound waves are prohibited to move through the outer ear to the middle ear due to any problem located in the outer or middle ear we experience conductive hearing loss.
The most common cause is wax build up in the ear canal, perforated eardrums, fluid in the middle ear, damage to the middle ear bones, or a foreign body in the ear. In most cases this type of loss can be treated medically
Sensorineural Hearing Loss
The most common cause is wax build up in the ear canal, perforated eardrums, fluid in the middle ear, damage to the middle ear bones, or a foreign body in the ear. In most cases this type of loss can be treated medically
Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Sensorineural hearing loss is a result of damage to the inner ear.
This can be due to the natural process of aging; as we get older, we lose our ability to hear high-pitched sounds. This is challenging as we miss valuable building blocks of speech
Excessive exposure to noise: this is caused due to an over exposure to loud noise. Protection is better than cure so please protect your hearing.
It can also be caused by infection, certain drugs and birth defects.
Mixed hearing loss
This can be due to the natural process of aging; as we get older, we lose our ability to hear high-pitched sounds. This is challenging as we miss valuable building blocks of speech
Excessive exposure to noise: this is caused due to an over exposure to loud noise. Protection is better than cure so please protect your hearing.
It can also be caused by infection, certain drugs and birth defects.
Mixed hearing loss
This is when we have a combination of conductive and sensorineural hearing loss in the same ear. This is caused by damage to the outer, middle- and the inner ear.
Sound waves are not conducted efficiently to the inner ear, resulting in a mixed hearing loss.
Degrees of hearing loss
Sound waves are not conducted efficiently to the inner ear, resulting in a mixed hearing loss.
Degrees of hearing loss
- Mild hearing loss: Soft noises are not heard. Understanding speech is difficult in a noisy environment.
- Moderate hearing loss: Unable to hear Soft and moderately loud sounds. Speech understanding in background noise is an effort
- Severe hearing loss: Unable to hear most sounds. Speakers must raise their voices or shout to be heard clearly. Group conversations are possible only with a lot of effort.
- Profound hearing loss: Some very loud noises are audible, but without a hearing aid, communication is no longer possible.
Quick Hearing Test / Warning Signs
- I experience difficulty understanding the voice over a telephone.
- I have to turn the TV’s volume up louder than others prefer.
- I have to strain to hear people speak during conversations.
- I have trouble hearing speech in the presence of background noise.
- I am not always sure from which direction the sound is coming from.
- I often need to ask people to repeat themselves.
- Women and children’s voices are especially hard to hear.
- I experience difficulty hearing the speaker in a large room, such as a meeting.
- Many people I talk to seem to mumble or speak unclearly.
- I avoid social activities and conversations as they are difficult to maintain.
- Family members and friends have told me they think I may have a hearing loss.
- I constantly need to lip read.