How can deafness be caused

A consultation with a hearing professional can help determine the type, cause and degree of your hearing loss. Click here to find an experienced provider near you. If you have mild hearing loss, you may hear some speech sounds, but will have difficulty with soft sounds.

If you have severe hearing loss, you will hear little-to-no speech when spoken at normal levels, and hear only some loud sounds. If you have profound hearing loss, you may only hear very loud sounds and no speech at all. Hearing loss is caused by many factors, most frequently from natural aging or exposure to loud noise. The most common causes of hearing loss are:. The early warning signs of hearing loss are often missed.

Learn what to look for. This can happen at any time during childhood, but is more common in teenagers and young adults. Your Community turns one! See what families are saying on Your Community, a new online forum for families of deaf children and young people. Share Facebook Twitter linkedin Email. Print page Causes of deafness.

Causes of deafness before birth pre-natal causes Permanent deafness in children is most commonly caused by genetics, passed down in families, even though there appears to be no family history of deafness. Conductive hearing loss affects the transmission of sound between the outer and inner ear.

For example, this may be caused by:. In many cases, treatment is available for conductive hearing loss and normal hearing will return. Sensorineural hearing loss occurs due to damage to the inner ear the cochlea.

Often, hearing gradually becomes less acute as we age. This affects the clarity with which we hear speech. This means the person can hear, but not always understand. Tinnitus means a sensation of noises in the ears or head in the absence of any environmental sounds.

These sounds can range from ringing, buzzing, whooshing, whistling, roaring, humming or cricket sounds. Tinnitus is not an illness or disease.

Some of the triggers of tinnitus include middle ear infections and damage to the ear from loud noises. Tinnitus may occur on its own, or in conjunction with hearing loss. This page has been produced in consultation with and approved by:. People are less sensitive to smells the older they get, and women tend to have a more acute sense of smell than men. Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo BPPV is a condition characterised by episodes of sudden and severe vertigo.

Croup is a viral infection of the throat and windpipe that causes noisy breathing, a hoarse voice and a harsh, barking cough. Dizziness is generally treatable and rarely indicates serious brain disease. Household members, friends, and teachers may have noticed a problem before they acknowledged the disability. Depending on the severity of hearing loss, the individual may have had to use hearing aids, receive a cochlear implant, or learn how to lip-read.

People who experience hearing loss face different challenges, depending on when it occurs and how long it takes to develop. They might have to become familiar with new equipment, undergo surgery, learn sign language and lip reading, and use various communication devices. A feeling of isolation is a common problem, which can sometimes lead to depression and loneliness.

A person with post-lingual hearing loss also has to face the often-distressing process of coming to terms with a disability. The condition may also pose challenges for household members, loved ones, and close friends, who have to adapt to the hearing loss. Miscommunication can place a strain on relationships, not only for the person with the hearing impairment, but also the people around them.

If the hearing loss is gradual and has not yet been diagnosed, family members may mistakenly believe that the individual with the condition is becoming more distant. Single-sided deafness SDD , or unilateral deafness, refers to hearing impairment in just one ear, while bilateral deafness is hearing impairment in both. People with a unilateral hearing impairment may find it hard to carry on a conversation if the other person is on their affected side. Pinpointing the source of a sound may be more difficult, when compared with those who can hear well in both ears.

Understanding what others are saying when there is a lot of environmental noise might be hard. With little to no background noise, a person with unilateral deafness has virtually the same communicative abilities as a person with functional hearing in both ears. Babies born with unilateral deafness tend to have developmental speech delays.

They may find it harder to concentrate when they go to school. Social activities may be more challenging than it is for children with no hearing problems. The symptoms of hearing impairment depend on its cause. Some people are born without being able to hear, while others suddenly become deaf due to an accident or illness.

For most people, symptoms of deafness progress gradually over time. Some conditions may have hearing loss as a symptom, such as tinnitus or stroke. Patients who suspect something is wrong with their hearing will initially go and see their doctor. The doctor will talk to the patient and ask several questions regarding the symptoms, including when they started, whether or not they have gotten worse, and whether the individual is feeling pain alongside the hearing loss.

The doctor will look into the ear using an otoscope. This is an instrument with a light at the end. The following may be detected during the examination:. A doctor may ask the patient to cover one ear and describe how well they hear words spoken at different volumes, as well as checking sensitivity to other sounds.

If the doctor suspects a hearing problem, they will probably be referred to either an ear, nose, and throat ENT specialist or an audiologist. A tuning fork test: This is also known as the Rinne test. A tuning fork is a metal instrument with two prongs that produces a sound when it is struck. Simple tuning fork tests may help the doctor detect whether there is any hearing loss, and where the problem is.

A tuning fork is vibrated and placed against the mastoid bone behind the ear. The patient is asked to indicate when they no longer hear any sound. The fork, which is still vibrating, is then placed 1 to 2 centimeters cm from the auditory canal. The patient is asked again whether they can hear the fork. As air conduction is greater than bone conduction, the patient should be able to hear the vibration. If they cannot hear it at this point, it means that their bone conduction is superior to their air conduction.

Audiometer test: The patient wears earphones, and sounds are directed into one ear at a time. A range of sounds is presented to the patient at various tones. The patient has to signal each time a sound is heard. Each tone is presented at various volumes, so that the audiologist can determine at which point the sound at that tone is no longer detected. The same test is carried out with words. The audiologist presents words at various tones and decibel levels to determine where the ability to hear stops.