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Hearing Loss

Overtime, the wear and tear on your ears from noise can contribute to hearing loss by damaging your inner ear. Hereditary or chronic exposures to loud noises are some of the main factors that can contribute to hearing loss. However, with the music decibels ever increasing and the introduction of ear bud headphones, hearing loss is affecting people at an earlier and earlier age.

More than 22 million people suffer from a significant hearing loss, with 5 million school-age children being affected and 8 million in the over-65 age range.

Unfortunately, you cannot reverse hearing loss. But, you no longer have to live in a quieter, muted world. With the assistance of hearing devices and aural rehabilitation, you can now take the steps to improve what and how you hear!

Hearing loss can be divided into 5 categories: Normal, mild loss, moderate loss, severe loss and profound loss.

• Normal hearing: The individual in question is able to hear normally with minimal difficulty. Please note that a 'normal hearing' individual will have difficulty hearing if there is a lot of background noise present and other difficult listening situations (talking between rooms, trying to hear someone with water running next to you, etc.)
• Mild hearing loss: The individual has some difficulty hearing with background noise, but is able to compensate using specific strategies (facing the speaker, moving to a quieter room if there is noise). One-on-one conversation face-to-face usually is not a problem for these individuals.
• Moderate hearing loss: Hearing in background noise is much more difficult, difficulties will arise in one-one-one conversation, and the individual in question will start to avoid certain situations where they know hearing will be a problem.
• Severe hearing loss: Many difficulties arise in one-on-one conversation; background noise renders hearing conversation nearly impossible. Frustration levels with these individuals are quite high, as breakdowns in communication between speaker and listener occurring nearly all of the time. These individuals actively avoid situations where they know hearing will be difficult (which ends up being most situations, and results in increased isolation).
• Profound hearing loss: What laypeople refer to as 'deaf'. These individuals cannot hear without assistance, and are literally isolated from the outside world.