Hearing Loss | hear.com

Understand hearing loss

You don’t have to wait for hearing loss to remind you how important it is to hear clearly. Our sense of hearing allows us to enjoy the sounds that surround us in our everyday lives.

Understanding sudden hearing loss

Sudden hearing loss can occur suddenly or develop within a few hours. It is still unclear what exactly causes sudden hearing loss, and the medical world is searching for ways to better understand this phenomenon.

Tinnitus

An estimated 25 million Americans have already experienced noise or ringing in the ears, or Tinnitus, in the past years. Common triggers include acute hearing loss, excessive noise, impaired blood circulation, stress, or misalignment of the cervical spine or jaw joint.

Audiologists

Audiologists and hearing specialists are healthcare professionals with extensive education and training to perform hearing evaluations on adults and children.

Hearing test

The results of your hearing tests are typically recorded on an audiogram. Therefore, it is important you understand how to read your audiogram.

Combined hearing loss

Combined hearing loss describes the occurrence of conductive hearing loss that also has a sensorineural component. The adverse effects result from the component that is more pronounced.

Conductive hearing loss

Sounds in everyday life are perceived as softer and discussions feel more strenuous. However, the quality of the sounds is not clear and sharp – the perception of both high and low tones is reduced.

Cookie bite hearing loss

Cookie bite hearing loss is unusual because it affects certain sounds someone will hear. It develops slowly and is harder to detect than other forms of hearing loss.

High-frequency hearing loss

People who are experiencing high-frequency hearing loss (“s”, “f” and “sh” sounds) are unable to clearly hear the person with whom they are speaking, even at a normal volume. High-frequency hearing loss limits speech intelligibility, even though perception of volume is normal (isolated high-frequency hearing loss).

Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL)

Noise-related hearing loss is not only common, it is also incredibly easy to be exposed to: the ear's comfort range of noises are at around 60 dB, up 85 dB.

Sensorineural hearing loss

Sensorineural hearing loss (also called Labyrinthine hearing loss) is a functional impairment of the hearing organ (sound-sensing hair cells) as well as a dysfunctional neural component which can lead to hearing impairment (hypoacusis).