Types & Effects of Deafness
| Contents |
[Edit]1 Causes of High Frequency Hearing Loss?
As in other kinds of hearing loss, loud sustained noise can damage the delicate inner mechanisms of the ear.
Sometimes loss of hearing is not permanent; some types of high-frequency hearing loss are temporary, such as those induced by a high level of drugs such as aspirin or quinine.
New studies have tied frequent cell phone use to inner ear damage resulting in the loss of the ability to hear high frequencies.
The results of of one such study were presented at the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation's Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO, held this year in Washingtond DC. The study found that 100 people with frequent use of cell phones for one year had increases in their degree of hearing loss. People who used their cell phones more than 1 hour a day suffered more damage than those who used their phones less.
[Edit]2 What Are The Symptoms Of High Frequency Hearing Loss?
Signs of this kind of hearing loss can be spotted because a person struggles to hear consonants like t, f, s, ch, and z although other sounds are heard clearly. As a result of missing those consonants however, the person hears the sounds but cannot make out what is being said.
Being unable to understand sounds on any part of the spectrum will cause communication problems.
The ability to hear the higher parts of the sound spectrum usually comes first as hearing begins to degenerate with age.
Since women and children have higher pitched voices, persons with high frequency hearing loss will struggle more to understand what they say.
For this reason, simply speaking more loudly to the person with high frequency hearing loss may do no good since their ears cannot pick up the higher tones being used in the conversation no matter how loud they are. They are being heard, just not understood.
[Edit]3 Can High Frequency Hearing Loss Be Treated?
Yes it can be. With properly fitted hearing aids, assistive listening devices, and remedial therapy. While there is no way to regrow damage nerves or replace some of the inner ear's sensitive mechanisms at the present time, there are many ways to compensate for the missing sounds.
Even if hearing cannot be recovered, communications technologies for the deaf and hard of hearing are growing all the time, allowing people with this kind of disability to lead a richer, fuller life.
