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The effect a hearing loss can have on your lifestyle
There are many reasons why we stop hearing as we’d like to, and everyone can be affected, regardless of age. Hearing loss often occurs gradually, so that we tend to forget how things sound and therefore your lifestyle can be affected in a number of different ways.
The effect a hearing loss can have on your lifestyle
Living in a quieter world
Instead of doing something positive about it, many people just start to live in a quieter world, and with the difficulties caused by not hearing properly, some of which can include:
- People seem to be mumbling.
- You strain to hear when someone talks quietly.
- You often find yourself asking people to repeat themselves.
- Following a conversation is difficult when in a group of people.
- You have to turn up the volume on the TV or radio – often so that it is too loud for other people in the room.
- You have difficulty hearing someone call from behind or another room.
- You find it increasingly difficult to hear clearly on the telephone.
- You find it hard to hear at the theatre, cinema or church.
- You have begun to limit your social activities due to hearing difficulties and therefore feel isolated from the world.
Do something positive
If a hearing loss (even if it is only slight) is affecting your quality of life, you can do something positive about it instead of trying to cope. This could just mean just going to see your local, independent, friendly hearing aid audiologist at one of Charlwood Hearing Care’s centres to talk through all the options available.
Understanding and accepting a hearing loss is the first step to overcoming the difficulties it causes.
Find out more about how we hear
How we hear
Hearing is one of our five senses. It converts sound waves to neural impulses that can be understood by the brain as sound. Only by understanding how the ear works is it its possible to fully appreciate what causes hearing loss.
Sounds moving through air are best described as vibrations of air molecules. These vibrations create sound waves, which in turn are received by the human ear, collected and converted into neural codes to be interpreted by the brain.
The ear consists of three parts: The outer, middle and inner ears.
Outer ear
The outer ear is the external cartilaginous part of the ear and ear canal – the bit we see. It functions as a funnel, collecting sound waves and conducting them to the eardrum, located at the end of the ear canal. This forms the boundary to the middle ear.
Middle ear
The middle ear is an air-filled space. Air pressure in the middle ear is regulated by the Eustachian tube, which connects the middle ear to the nose and throat. There are three small bones in the middle ear; the malleus, the incus and the stapes – commonly called the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup. This chain of bones forms a lever mechanism, conducting the vibrations from the eardrum to the part of the inner ear that processes sound.
Inner ear
The inner ear is a fluid-filled bone structure shaped like a snail shell. The connection between the middle ear and the inner ear is called the oval window. The footplate of the small stapes bone is attached to the oval window and functions as a piston moving the fluid of the inner ear.
Inside the inner ear is the cochlea where there are about 23,000 outer hair cells, which are activated by this movement of the fluid. When the hair cells are activated, they send impulses to the brain, which then interprets these impulses as sound.
The frequency of the sound determines which group of hair cells are activated, allowing us to distinguish between different sounds. If the hair cells are damaged due to age, illness or other causes, they have difficulty hearing certain sounds and differentiating between sounds. Large amounts of earwax can also considerably reduce the ability to hear.
Typical causes of hearing loss include:
- Natural ageing process
- Exposure to loud or prolonged periods of noise
- Ear infections or injury
- Medication that is toxic to the auditory system
- Illness or complications at birth