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There are many causes of hearing problems. Conditions affecting the outer and middle ear (conductive losses) prevent the transmission of sound energy from reaching the organ of hearing (cochlear). Most permanent types of hearing loss are caused by conditions which affect the cochlear and nerve fibres (perceptive losses). These affect the way in which mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy and passed on to the brain where it is interpreted as something meaningful.
Roll your cursor over the diagram
Speech is made up from very complex patterns of sound varying in pitch and loudness as the diagram shows above. Even in the early stages of a hearing loss some of the speech information is lost while some of the background sounds can be heard easily.
Unfortunately, the majority of hearing losses are the result of many years deterioration and the sufferer often has little or no tangible evidence of a loss at all. In many cases, it is the sufferers family or friends who initially notice the loss- from frequently needing to repeat themselves in conversation to noticing that the television or radio is louder than it should be.
As a hearing loss progresses the brain is deprived of the auditory information which can have a detrimental effect on auditory memory. This is why when you first start wearing a hearing aid you may notice some background sounds are very noticeable. As the brain relearns to differentiate between important speech sounds and unimportant environmental noise these background sounds become less problematic. The fitting of a properly prescribed hearing aid in the early stages of loss can reduce this habituation period significantly.
Roll your cursor over the below 2 images, so you can hear the difference between a damaged ear and a normal ear.
| Damaged Ear | Normal Ear |
