What does hearing loss "sound" like?

The five most common types of hearing loss are:

1. Conductive – occurs either in the outer or middle ear – common to children and often correctable with medication or surgery.
2. Sensory – involves damage in the cochlea, typically the inner and outer hair cells or the stria vascularis in the scala media. Typical causes are presbycusis, noise exposure, ototoxic medications, inner ear infections, and heredity.
3. Neural – affects the auditory branch of Cranial Nerve VIII. Causes include presbycusis, tumors, multiple sclerosis and infection.
4. Sensorineural – this term identifies hearing loss resulting from both sensory and neural sites, even including the brainstem and cortical pathways. In addition to causes previously described, vascular lesions may cause this.
5. Mixed – a combination of conductive plus the others

Sensorineural hearing loss is the most common type of loss and varies in degree. Someone with a mild degree of sensorineural hearing loss would find it difficult to understand speech in noisy environments like restaurants and places of worship. Someone with a moderate degree of sensorineural hearing loss would find it more difficult to hear soft sounds as well as speech in difficult listening environments. It's difficult to comprehend how someone with hearing loss interprets sound in various acoustic environments. The Better Hearing Institute features a hearing loss simulator on their website that helps people with normal hearing understand what different environments sound like to an individual with hearing loss.  

To access the hearing loss simulator, click here.

Image provided courtesy of Jeroen van Oostrom of freedigitalphotos.net