Recent Articles
How is deafness measured?
This is generally measured by testing how well a person can hear very quiet sounds with different frequencies; the person will be given a handheld device with a button to press as soon as they can hear the sound. This level is called the threshold and it is measured in decibels, people who can hear frequencies in the 0 to 20 db are said to have perfect hearing with greater thresholds gradually worsening in hearing.
The whole point to a hearing test is for the audiologist to determine the extent of your hearing loss and the type of hearing loss you have. The extent of your hearing loss is determined by decibels based on pure tone frequencies of 500 to 4000mhz. You are said to have normal hearing when you can hear decibels ranging from 0 to 20 db HL with mild hearing loss around 20 to 40 db HL and severe hearing loss at 80 db HL or greater.
The type of hearing loss refers to either sensorineural, which is usually a permanent hearing loss due to trauma or disease, conductive which can be a temporary of permanent hearing loss due to abnormal conditions of the outer or middle ear or a mixture of both.
Hyperacusis is a condition which increases sensitivity to sound, some normal everyday sounds that other people hear ok will cause the sufferer extreme pain and discomfort. The sounds which make a person feel this way varies from person to person it isn’t just certain sounds which cause it but a range of them.
What does the condition feel like?
Having Hyperacusis can be very distressing, it can make you feel anxious, startled and at times it can bring on actual panic attacks, if you suffer from Hyperacusis then you could also suffer from tinnitus. The sufferer can also find that once they have been exposed to a noise which causes them severe distress then the feelings of discomfort can stop with them for a long time afterward.
The anxiety that this causes can be the most distressing symptom of all because if the sufferer is in conditions where they are likely to hear the noise repeatedly then they are forever tense while expecting the sound again.
If your partner has gradual hearing loss then it can be very frustrating not only for them but also for you too, people with gradual hearing loss will usually be able to hear sounds such as vowels quite easily but have trouble hearing the consonants.
Consonants are the most important ones when it comes to understanding what is being said, these are the higher frequencies of sound and when hearing gets worse due to a gradual loss this is the frequency which is generally affected.
As a result of this loss the person suffering from hearing loss will begin to fill in the gaps for the sounds they miss which in the beginning can cause a lot of frustration and misunderstanding.
Certain medication can cause problems with hearing loss; drugs that can affect the hearing are called ototoxic, they can also affect the balance and have been known to cause tinnitus. However it is important that you never stop taking any medication that has been prescribed by your doctor for a medical problem without first consulting your doctor. Medications that can cause problems with the hearing are:
- Drugs for preventing malaria.
- Certain antibiotics called aminoglycosides.
- Cytotoxic drugs which are usually found in medication to treat cancer.
- Diuretics.
- Aspirin.
Menieres disease affects the inner ear and no one knows the exact cause of the disease but it does affect the fluid in the canals of the inner ear. Menieres disease is termed a chromic illness which means that it will last a long time and the symptoms can be very unpleasant. Symptoms of the disease don’t occur all the time they come more as attacks or waves and the frequency of these attacks varies greatly from a few minutes to hours, with a particular attack lasting anything from 10 minutes to 2 hours at any one time.
This is an infection which causes problems with the eardrum, it is a condition which mainly arises from the common cold and children are more susceptible to it than are adults, though people of all ages can get middle ear infection.
What causes middle ear infection?
When we suffer from a cold or any other infection which affects the upper airways the tubes which are called the Eustachian tubes and whose purpose it is to drain the ears into the throat can become swollen due to them being filled with excess mucous.
Mild hearing loss can have an affect on the way people are able to communicate and if left untreated in young children it can lead to problems occurring with language development and speech. You are said to have mild hearing loss if you have problems at around 26 to 46 decibels.
Noise induced hearing loss can occur over long exposure to loud noise or a one time exposure to a loud sound such as an explosion, this happens when damage occurs to the minute hair cells in the cochlear. These hair cells send different sound frequencies to the auditory nerve which enables us to identify them as different sounds, when these become damaged then the hearing is affected.
If you have excellent hearing then you will be able to hear a range of different sounds from 20Hz to 20,000 Hz but over a period of time the hair cells can become damaged and if the damage is due to loud noise it is usually the high frequency area of the cochlea which becomes affected.
Otosclerosis usually occurs in people during their teens or early years and causes ear bone degeneration, the sound conducting bones of the ear will start to change in consistency from hard bone to soft bone tissue. This degeneration will then cause a build-up of excess bone tissue around a bone in the middle ear called the stapes. When this happens the stapes won’t move as it should but instead becomes immobile, when this happens it can’t vibrate as it normally does and this affects the hearing.
A person who has problems with sound being prevented from being conducted to the inner ear is said to have a conductive hearing loss. If the nerve associated with hearing is also affected with Otosclerosis then this causes sensorineural hearing loss. The exact cause of nerve damage associated with this disease isn’t quite known but it is thought that toxic enzymes released into the cochlear are one of the reasons.