Better Understanding Hearing Loss

  For my last blog, I wanted to do a physiological analysis of hearing loss. The reason for this is that my mom is deaf (with a cochlear implant), and my brother and I both inherited mild to moderate hearing loss genetically. I have always been interested in hearing loss because it seems more uncommon than issues in vision especially for people in younger age groups. This said I still didn’t know the basic physiology behind the issue, and I wanted to understand the different mechanisms hearing loss can affect and the various types of conditions that lead to this. Hearing loss occurs when the auditory path is disrupted in any way. This includes the auricle, external auditory canal, tympanic membrane, ossicles, cochlea, and auditory nerve for brain processing. Hearing loss is classified into three types. Conductive, sensorineural, and mixed. Conductive hearing loss occurs when sound has issues reaching the cochlea. Common issues resulting in conductive hearing loss are congenital abnormalities of the ear (from birth), cerumen impaction (ear wax building up), ear infections (fungal or bacterial), middle ear effusion (fluid buildup without infection), and cholesteatoma (skin builds up in middle ear). These all block sound from traveling through the cochlea by different mechanisms. Sensorineural hearing loss occurs at or beyond the cochlea, including hair cell damage (on the cochlea which detects sound), and eighth nerve issues. For sensorineural hearing loss, people can experience both diminished and distorted sound (quieter and less clear). Mixed hearing loss occurs when conductive and sensorineural mechanisms are both present. Because this issue isn’t the result of any specific scientific paper, I want to focus on the ethics surrounding accessibility for people with hearing loss, as I have personal experience with this. First, good hearing aids are expensive without insurance. Personally, mine are 5,000$ as a pair. Dealing with this as an adult is frustrating, as only so many hearing aids are insured if I were to lose them (already lost one). The last issue that causes difficulty is accessibility in schools. If I can’t sit at the front of the class, it makes listening to professors difficult depending on how much they project. That said, I’m grateful to live in an age where these accommodations are accessible at all, and I’m excited to see how these issues change in the future. 

Reference

Anastasiadou, Sofia. “Hearing Loss.” StatPearls [Internet]., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 23 May 2023, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542323/#:~:text=Hearing%20loss%20is%20a%20condition,is%20conductive%20or%20sensorineural%2C%20respectively.