Hearing Loss

The first step in exploring hearing and treatment is education.

Understanding the signs, symptoms, preventative options, and treatment is essential for peace of mind. Hearing your best starts with education, providing you with clarity and confidence in your decisions.

Degrees

Types

Causes

Symptoms

Degrees of hearing loss

There are four clinically labeled degrees of hearing loss:

Mild

If you have mild hearing loss, you may hear some speech sounds but will have difficulty with soft sounds.

Moderate

If you have moderate hearing loss, you’ll struggle to hear/understand speech when someone is talking at a normal level.

Severe

If you have severe hearing loss, you will hear little-to-no speech when spoken at normal levels and hear only some loud sounds.

Profound

If you have profound hearing loss, you may only hear very loud sounds and no speech at all.

Types of hearing loss

Sensorineural hearing loss

Sensorineural hearing loss is the most common type of hearing loss. It occurs when the inner ear nerves and hair cells are damaged — perhaps due to age, noise damage, or something else. Sensorineural hearing loss impacts the pathways from your inner ear to your brain. Most times, sensorineural hearing loss cannot be corrected medically or surgically, but can be treated and helped with the use of hearing aids.

Conductive hearing loss

Conductive hearing loss is typically the result of obstructions in the outer or middle ear — perhaps due to fluid, tumors, earwax, or even ear formation. This obstruction prevents sound from getting to the inner ear. Conductive hearing loss can often be treated surgically or with medicine.

Mixed hearing loss

Mixed hearing loss is just what it sounds like — a combination of sensorineural and conductive hearing loss.

Causes of hearing loss

Hearing loss is caused by many factors, most frequently from natural aging or exposure to loud noise. The other most common causes of hearing loss are head trauma, viruses and diseases, genetics, and ototoxicity.

Things that can cause sensorineural hearing loss are:

Aging
Injury
Excessive noise exposure
Viral infections (such as measles or mumps)
Shingles
Ototoxic drugs (medications that damage hearing)
Meningitis
Diabetes
Stroke
High fever or elevated body temperature
Acoustic tumors
Heredity
Obesity
Smoking
Hypertension

Things that can cause conductive hearing loss are:

Infections of the ear canal or middle ear resulting in fluid or pus buildup
Perforation or scarring of the eardrum
Dislocation of the middle ear bones (ossicles)
Foreign objects in the ear canal
Otosclerosis (an abnormal bone growth in the middle ear)
Abnormal growths or tumors

Symptoms of hearing loss

Hearing loss affects nearly every aspect of daily living. It can reduce your quality of life, making communication more difficult by:

Hearing loss and Alzheimers

The National Council for Better Hearing warns that untreated hearing loss can have many symptomatic similarities to Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, unbeknownst to many, hearing loss may be a common cause. Recent studies conducted at the University of Washington’s Department of Medicine found that out of 100 patients with Alzheimer’s, 83 patients had a hearing loss. Once fit with hearing aids, a third of those patients were classified with a less severe case of dementia.

Hearing loss plays a large role in brain function. For those with untreated hearing losses, the reduced ability to hear every day sounds may lead to reduced sound processing activity by the brain. As the brain receives fewer sounds, it becomes less active in processing a person’s surroundings and recognizing speech.

Signs to look out for:

Asking others to repeat themselves
Having trouble understanding conversation in noisy places
Having trouble hearing women’s and children’s voices
Turning up the television or radio volume to levels others find too loud
Feeling like other people are always mumbling
Having trouble hearing on the telephone
Avoiding social situations that were once enjoyable
Having difficulty following a fast-moving conversation
Missing important information in meetings
Being told by others that you have hearing loss
Memory problems and other cognitive effects

Ready to take the next step?

Check your hearing

Curious if you have hearing loss? Take our online hearing test and find out!

Find a location

With 13 clinics and 37 mobile clinics, the best hearing care in Arkansas is never far.

Schedule online

Quickly and easily schedule an appointment in any of our clinics.