If you or a member of your family are suffering from hearing loss, you may have many questions. While most people recognize hearing loss in elderly people or people continuously exposed to loud noise, they do not necessarily understand hearing loss in children or younger adults. Get to know some of the important facts about hearing loss as well as your options for dealing with it. Then, you can begin to deal with your hearing loss or that of your immediate family member with a better understanding of what is going on.
There Are Different Types of Hearing Loss
One of the important things to be aware of about hearing loss is that there is not just one universal type of hearing loss. The different types of hearing loss can affect how the hearing loss will be treated and managed.
The most commonly recognized types of hearing loss are noise-related and age-related hearing loss. However, there are others that can affect people of any age. One such type of hearing loss is known as conductive hearing loss.
In conductive hearing loss, a person's outer and/or middle ear malfunctions for some reason, preventing sound waves from reaching the inner ear to be interpreted and transmitted to the brain. Conductive hearing loss can occur because of a tumor in the outer or middle ear, another type of blockage, malformations of bones in the ear, and other structural problems.
Another type of hearing loss is sensorineural hearing loss. Sensorineural hearing loss occurs because of problems with the cochlea and/or with the nerves connecting the cochlea to the brain. Sometimes, this can involve structural problems with the cochlea itself, problems with the connection between the nerve and the cochlea, or issues just with the nerve. Sometimes, the problem may be that the nerve is not actually connected to the cochlea, or there may be no nerve there at all.
Hearing Loss Treatment Options
There are numerous options for treating hearing loss depending on the type of hearing loss that you have. For example, sensorineural hearing loss is not usually treatable except with sensorineural hearing aids. These hearing aids create larger vibrations in the inner ear which can activate the small hair-like cells there that detect sound.
On the other hand, conductive hearing loss can sometimes be fixed with surgery to remove tumors or correct structural problems. If the blockage in the ear is large amounts of earwax, the earwax can be removed, and the infection or issue creating the earwax can be treated. When such treatments do not effectively combat hearing loss, hearing aids may be an option. Cochlear implants can also be effective with this type of hearing loss, as it rewires the brain to "hear" sound through electronic signals from the implant which can circumvent issues in the outer and middle ear.
Additional treatments can also help with hearing loss. Speech pathology can help with communication skills and help a person to learn to cope with cochlear implants or hearing aids. Learning American Sign Language is also an option to consider with profound hearing loss.
Now that you know more about hearing loss and your treatment options, you can better manage the hearing loss that is affecting you or your family member going forward.
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