The different levels of hearing can play a major role in your life.
Eating a balanced diet, avoiding drugs where possible and maintaining a healthy bio-system (good circulation/healthy blood) will all contribute to minimising hearing loss.
A good bank balance (minimal stress and worry) is also a good thing, and although that pretty much goes without saying, you will see why my website is all about those things: health and business combined with a little history helps you to keep your feet on the ground and to enjoy life.
Enjoy life! It's a terrific goal, but some effort is required.
So let me start by making you feel better.
Hearing loss is not unusual in anyone over 60 years old, and affects many younger people.
Hearing aids do NOT make you old: they solve a problem, and they do it now better than at any time in history.
Let's do a quick resume of why hearing deteriorates, and how it can affect our daily lives.
I shall do this in each of the three main categories of levels of hearing.
1.
Mild Hearing Loss.
Over the course of human history the human hearing system has been investigated, examined and is now largely understood.
It is evaluated in dBHL (Decibel Hearing Level), which is not the same measurement as the Decibel, but similar: it varies from the Decibel sound level depending on the frequency of the sound.
In human beings, it is more commonly for us to lose our high frequency hearing first, which has the effect of handicapping us by making speech NOT inaudible (we hear speech), but unclear (voices may sound muffled or people seem to mumble).
This is because the consonants, which effectively punctuate the words we hear, are, in the main, high frequency sounds.
So Mild Hearing Loss is where you find some difficulty hearing sounds between 25dBHL and 50DbHL.
Speech is commonly around 40-45DbHL.
When you have a hearing test, your hearing thresholds are recorded on and 'Audiogram', which is measured in dBHL.
To give you some idea about the lower end of such a loss, the sound of a rustling leaf, or rubbing together a pair of dry hands, is about 20 - 25dBHL.
Common causes of mild hearing loss are: age, long-term use of 'Salicylates' (a good example of a salicylate is Aspirin), and drugs which thin the blood.
Sufferers of mild hearing loss usually hear very well in quiet situations: not so well in noisy environments.
2.
Moderate Hearing Loss.
This is where there is difficulty hearing sounds between 50dBHL and 70dBHL.
Those in this category will experience all of the symptoms above, but will also struggle with groups of more than two or three in quiet surroundings and will find real difficulties hearing clearly in any type of background noise and voices from any distance.
This type of hearing is caused exactly as Mild Hearing loss, but with longer exposure to drugs, exposure to noise (military veterans, workers in noisy factories etc.
), perforated eardrums and bloked 'Eustacian Tubes'/Sinus problems.
3.
Severe Hearing Loss.
I think you are getting the picture now.
Severe loss is between 70dBHL and 90dBHL.
Those in this category will experience difficulty hearing speech in most situations.
Causes include all of those already mentioned: commonly applicable to the more elderly members of the population and more often where noise damage, bad episodes of childhood illness such as 'Mumps' and damage from use of drugs ('Mycin' drugs, chemo-therapy drugs are often contributors, and are known as 'Oto-Toxic' drugs) applies.
4.
Profound Hearing Loss.
This applies to anything worse than 95dBHL.
To give you an example, the sound of a jet aircraft flying directly above your home would produce a dBHL of approximately 110 - 120dBHL.
Certain childhood syndromes, genetically passed on, can produce such levels of hearing loss and it can happen from birth.
If you wish to research syndromes which contribute to hearing loss, any search engine will do.
And finally...
if you feel you have any problems hearing at all, be good to your body and see an Audiologist.
Hearing tests are usually free, and any Audiologist worth his salt will explain exactly where you are with your hearing, and what options are available to you.
Paul C Dyer
Eating a balanced diet, avoiding drugs where possible and maintaining a healthy bio-system (good circulation/healthy blood) will all contribute to minimising hearing loss.
A good bank balance (minimal stress and worry) is also a good thing, and although that pretty much goes without saying, you will see why my website is all about those things: health and business combined with a little history helps you to keep your feet on the ground and to enjoy life.
Enjoy life! It's a terrific goal, but some effort is required.
So let me start by making you feel better.
Hearing loss is not unusual in anyone over 60 years old, and affects many younger people.
Hearing aids do NOT make you old: they solve a problem, and they do it now better than at any time in history.
Let's do a quick resume of why hearing deteriorates, and how it can affect our daily lives.
I shall do this in each of the three main categories of levels of hearing.
1.
Mild Hearing Loss.
Over the course of human history the human hearing system has been investigated, examined and is now largely understood.
It is evaluated in dBHL (Decibel Hearing Level), which is not the same measurement as the Decibel, but similar: it varies from the Decibel sound level depending on the frequency of the sound.
In human beings, it is more commonly for us to lose our high frequency hearing first, which has the effect of handicapping us by making speech NOT inaudible (we hear speech), but unclear (voices may sound muffled or people seem to mumble).
This is because the consonants, which effectively punctuate the words we hear, are, in the main, high frequency sounds.
So Mild Hearing Loss is where you find some difficulty hearing sounds between 25dBHL and 50DbHL.
Speech is commonly around 40-45DbHL.
When you have a hearing test, your hearing thresholds are recorded on and 'Audiogram', which is measured in dBHL.
To give you some idea about the lower end of such a loss, the sound of a rustling leaf, or rubbing together a pair of dry hands, is about 20 - 25dBHL.
Common causes of mild hearing loss are: age, long-term use of 'Salicylates' (a good example of a salicylate is Aspirin), and drugs which thin the blood.
Sufferers of mild hearing loss usually hear very well in quiet situations: not so well in noisy environments.
2.
Moderate Hearing Loss.
This is where there is difficulty hearing sounds between 50dBHL and 70dBHL.
Those in this category will experience all of the symptoms above, but will also struggle with groups of more than two or three in quiet surroundings and will find real difficulties hearing clearly in any type of background noise and voices from any distance.
This type of hearing is caused exactly as Mild Hearing loss, but with longer exposure to drugs, exposure to noise (military veterans, workers in noisy factories etc.
), perforated eardrums and bloked 'Eustacian Tubes'/Sinus problems.
3.
Severe Hearing Loss.
I think you are getting the picture now.
Severe loss is between 70dBHL and 90dBHL.
Those in this category will experience difficulty hearing speech in most situations.
Causes include all of those already mentioned: commonly applicable to the more elderly members of the population and more often where noise damage, bad episodes of childhood illness such as 'Mumps' and damage from use of drugs ('Mycin' drugs, chemo-therapy drugs are often contributors, and are known as 'Oto-Toxic' drugs) applies.
4.
Profound Hearing Loss.
This applies to anything worse than 95dBHL.
To give you an example, the sound of a jet aircraft flying directly above your home would produce a dBHL of approximately 110 - 120dBHL.
Certain childhood syndromes, genetically passed on, can produce such levels of hearing loss and it can happen from birth.
If you wish to research syndromes which contribute to hearing loss, any search engine will do.
And finally...
if you feel you have any problems hearing at all, be good to your body and see an Audiologist.
Hearing tests are usually free, and any Audiologist worth his salt will explain exactly where you are with your hearing, and what options are available to you.
Paul C Dyer