Hearing loss in adults

Types of hearing loss

Conductive hearing loss
What’s wrong Causes Amount of hearing loss
Parts in the outer ear and/or middle ear (eardrum and 3 bones) don’t work properly
  • Middle ear infections
  • Head injury
  • Birth defects
  • Disease such as otosclerosis
  • Mild to moderate hearing loss
  • Putting your fingers in your ears mimics conductive hearing loss (sounds from outside your ear are softer; your own voice may sound louder)

Sensorineural hearing loss*
What’s wrong Causes Amount of hearing loss
Parts in the inner ear (cochlea and hair cells) don’t work properly
  • Too much loud noise
  • Heredity/genetics
  • Head injury
  • Certain medications (cause damage to inner-ear hair cells)
  • Normal aging process (adults only)
  • Mild to profound hearing loss
  • Sounds are not only softer, but may seem muffled or garbled; harder to separate one sound from another and interpret meaning of speech and sounds

Neural hearing loss*
Hearing nerve doesn’t work properly
  • Heredity / genetics
  • Head injury
  • Tumor
  • Mild to profound hearing loss
  • Sounds are not only softer, but may seem muffled or garbled; harder to separate one sound from another and interpret meaning of speech and sounds

Mixed hearing loss
What’s wrong Causes Amount of hearing loss
A combination of conductive and sensorineural hearing loss
  • Combination of conductive and sensory causes
  • Mild to profound hearing loss

Single Sided Deafness (SSD)
What’s wrong Causes Amount of hearing loss
Profound sensorineural hearing loss in one ear only. Normal hearing from the other ea
  • Heredity/genetics
  • Head injury
  • Very loud noise in one ear
  • Tumor removal (surgery)
  • Acoustic neuroma removal (surgery)
  • You will have difficulty hearing in noisy places and may have trouble determining where sound is coming from

* It can be difficult to diagnosis the difference between sensory and neural hearing loss, so sometimes people call these categories “sensorineural hearing loss” because it’s either sensory or neural.

Do you think you might have a hearing problem?

Learn about early signs of hearing loss
Find out what steps you can take to get help

 

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