
How long the condition is expected to last How well you can handle specific medications, procedures, or therapies Your health care provider will figure out the best treatment based on: If a person can’t hear certain tones, this suggests there has been some degree of hearing loss. You are asked to respond if you are able to hear each sound. An audiogram is a test in which sounds are played through headphones to one ear at a time. You may be referred to a hearing specialist, an audiologist, to have an audiogram. He or she will look for damage to the ear drum, blockage of the ear canal from foreign objects or impacted ear wax, inflammation or infection. Your health care provider will use an otoscope, which is a lighted scope, to check in the outer ear canal and to look at the ear drum. Always consult your health care provider for a diagnosis. The symptoms of age-related hearing loss may look like other conditions or medical problems. Tinnitus (ringing in the ears) may occur in one or both ears. Some sounds seem overly loud and annoying. Men's voices are easier to hear than women's. High-pitched sounds, such as "s" or "th" are hard to distinguish.Ĭonversations are difficult to understand, particularly when there is background noise. Speech of others sounds mumbled or slurred. The following are the most common symptoms of age-related hearing loss: Side effects of some medications, such as aspirin and certain antibiotics Various health conditions, such as heart disease or diabetes Loss of hair cells (sensory receptors in the inner ear) Other factors that affect age-related hearing loss:Ĭontinuous exposure to loud noise (such as music or work-related noise)

It most often occurs because of changes in the following locations: There may be many causes for age-related hearing loss. The contributors range from excessive noise to drugs, viral or bacterial infections, head injury or head tumors, stroke and heredity. Older people are the largest group affected by hearing loss.
