Hearing impairment can affect anyone at any age. It is when a person is unable to pick up sounds either at all or slightly. Not only are humans affected but animals are at risk for hearing impairment as well. Hearing loss can be conductive or sensorineural. Conductive hearing loss is when sound is not conducted through the outer or middle ear. Conductive hearing loss is a mild problem. Sensorineural hearing loss is when there are abnormalities within the hair cells of the Corti within the cochlea. This type of hearing loss can be mild to moderate to severe to complete deafness.
Hearing loss can be caused by repeated exposure to loud sounds such as airplanes, motor vehicles, jack hammers and other power tools, guns, toys and large crowds. People who live near busy freeways and airports can be exposed to the possibility of hearing loss if they leave their windows open on a regular basis. Construction workers that use jack hammers usually wear headsets to protect their ears from the noise. Other construction equipment can cause hearing loss if exposed to it for an extended period of time. Even children’s toys, if too loud and the child holds it to their ear, can cause hearing loss over time.
It is possible for hearing loss to be inherited. If a family has a history of hearing loss, just like other conditions such as heart disease, it can be inherited from generation to generation. Hearing impairment can be caused by prolonged exposure to loud sounds, meningitis, mumps, fetal alcohol syndrome, premature birth, syphilis and Chlamydia. Hearing loss can also be caused by damage to the ear or the brain. Any trauma to the head can cause slight hearing loss, total deafness or tinnitus. People who are ‘hard of hearing’ means that they are not completely deaf but that they suffer from various stages of hearing loss.
Dealing with hearing loss is a difficult process. Many people who are born deaf will need to learn sign language to communicate. Not all, but most people who are born deaf are also born mute, not being able to talk. People who suffer from deafness later in life are still able to talk but are not able to hear and differentiate between sounds. Hearing aids are used by a large population of people with hearing impairments. Hearing aids help to amplify sounds coming into the ear(s) but do not solve the problem completely.
There is an option of having cochlear implants placed into the ear(s). The cochlear implants create an electrical impulse to stimulate the hairs on the cochlea. This process is expensive and takes a lot of programming to sync up the implants with the patient’s ear(s). It is possible for people to suffer from deafness in only one ear and not both. This is known as unilateral hearing loss. The main problem with this type of hearing impairment is that the patient is not able to pinpoint where background noise is coming from because they can only hear out of one ear.
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