Hearing Disabilities – Sensoryneural Deafness

Hearing Disabilities – Sensoryneural Deafness

            Sensoryneural deafness is the most commonly encountered form of hearing disability. It is defined as the loss of response to a specific range of frequencies due to damage to or defect with the inner ear. It can be mild and go almost unnoticed unless looked for, or it can be debilitating in more severe cases.

            Sensoryneural hearing loss is the much more severe form of hearing loss, as it can not be treated. It involves damage to the hair cell receptors for sound in the inner ear.

Almost all adolescents and older suffer from this form of deafness, however this is not within the range of frequencies normally encountered, and goes totally unnoticed. The highest frequencies are easily lost though what is now natural background noise. Humans are now exposed to much more damaging acoustic activity than we once were, we now have some form of noise almost constantly, even lying in bed there is the hum of a machine in the next room, the creaking of the house, the drone of traffic. This constant noise is not something we are biologically adapted for as it rarely occurs in nature. We also deal with much louder sounds than ever before. A single rock concert today puts out more sound energy in a few hours than earlier humans may have encountered in a full lifespan. All of this leads to far more stress than the ear is designed to take. This said, more and more people are suffering from progressive deafness.

 The highest frequency receptors in the cochlea are the first to go, as they are the most sensitive. Through further abuse, a wider range of hearing is lost. Now by the later years of one life it is not unheard of for an individual to suffer from hearing loss severe enough to require treatment. When the frequency range that is required to carry on regular day to day activities is lost, it becomes a problem. Conversation may be difficult, slow due to poor clarity of signals being sent to the brain. The problem is frequency however more than volume, this is why an elder member of the family may be able to understand some people better than others, their voice falls into the frequency ranges that are better processed by the elder.

            Those that have had greater trauma suffer more drastic and notably faster loss. Occupational hazards such as the drone of loud machinery in a factory, the extreme volume levels musicians are now subjected to, or the frequent loud bursts suffered by an artillery soldier have clear and terrible consequences on the inner ear.