1. HEARING LOSS BabakSaedi otolaryngologist

2. Types of Hearing Loss • Conductive Hearing Loss • Sensorineural Hearing Loss • Mixed Hearing Loss • Progressive Hearing Loss

3. CONDUCTIVE HEARING LOSS • Occurs from a dysfunction of the outer or middle ear • Can usually be treated with medicine or surgery • A deficit of loudness only

4. Characteristics of Conductive Loss: • Maintain soft speaking voice • Excellent speech discrimination when speech is loud enough • Typically either low frequency or flat hearing loss (equal at all frequencies)

5. TREATMENT: CONDUCTIVE HEARING LOSSES • Conductive hearing losses are due to problems that occur in the outer and middle ear which are usually temporary and/or treatable with antibiotics or surgery. • For those few people who have uncorrectable conductive hearing losses, hearing aids are of significant benefit as sound remains clear if it is made loud enough.

6. SENSORI-NEURAL HEARING LOSSES • Dysfunction of the inner ear or auditory nerve, usually permanent and untreatable • Results in loudness deficit and distorted hearing. • Nerve endings in cochlea or nerve pathways are damaged. • Message does not effectively reach the brain. • Middle ear structures are intact.

7. Genetics/Congenital Disease Mumps, Measles Meningitis, CMV Ototoxic drugs Head trauma Presbycusis Meniere’s Disease Acoustic Neuroma Ototoxin Exposure Noise Exposure: Prolonged exposure to hazardous noise causes hearing loss by the physical destruction of the hair cells in the cochlea. CAUSES OF SENSORI-NEURAL HEARING LOSS:

8. Characteristics of NIHL:(noise induced hearing loss) • Loss can be sudden, as with acoustic trauma from an explosion. • More often a gradual onset that may go unnoticed. • NIHL also known as noise induced permanent threshold shift (NIPTS), typically takes years of exposure, gradual erosion of hearing that eventually affects communication.

9. Characteristics of SNHL, con’t • Amount of loss varies from person to person • Risk of noise-induced progression stops if no longer in noise exposed, but aging invariably worsens loss • For most, aging effects aren’t significant before age 50+

10. POINTS TO REMEMBER ABOUT HEARING LOSS • You can’t fix a hearing loss • Any hearing loss – even MILD – impact children’s learning • Improving classroom acoustics will improve learning for hearing and hearing impaired children • If children can’t hear, they can’t learn

11. Questions?

12. Success in Life Begins With Hearing!