What Does Mild Hearing Loss Mean

A Mild Hearing Loss Is Not A Mild Problem

Mild hearing loss is a misnomer. I do not know what word to substitute but mild hearing losses are not a mild problem. The data is clear. Children with mild hearing loss are at risk for academic, speech-language, and social-emotional difficulties. Newborn hearing screening does not always pick up mild hearing loss so babies with mild hearing loss may not get identified until they demonstrate delays.

What Type Of Sound Can You Hear

The most common type of hearing loss is a high-frequency hearing loss frequently found in older people, called presbyacusis. This makes speech muffled and harder to follow, you hear the words but cannot always understand.

You can also have a low frequency hearing loss you may have lost some of the mid frequencies or you may have an equal loss across all the frequencies.

Some people are particularly sensitive to loud sounds.

Each of these will have different effects on how hard you find it to follow speech, and how comfortable you feel in different sound situations.

Your audiologist may use the terms conductive, sensory, sensorineural, or mixed when describing your hearing. These terms indicate which part of your auditory pathway is damaged, and understanding them can help you understand why you hear sounds as you do, and the type of help you can expect from a hearing aid.

When To See Your Gp

See your GP if you’re having problems with your hearing, or your child is showing signs of hearing difficulty. If you lose your hearing suddenly, in one or both ears, you must see your GP as soon as possible.

Your GP can check for any problems and may refer you to an audiologist or an ENT surgeon for further tests.

You can also visit the Action on Hearing Loss website for an online hearing test.

Read more about diagnosing hearing loss

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Mild Hearing Loss What Does It Mean

What does it mean when you are told you have MILD hearing loss? Mild hearing loss does not have mild consequences but is often ignored. It results in poor clarity, especially in noise and for soft speech.

Hearing loss can progress very slowly and can be hard to identify. You can easily miss the subtle signs and not realize youre missing out. Your hearing loss may be mild, but its not insignificant!

Watch how speech gets distorted in this video as hearing loss progresses.

Mild Hearing Loss: Hearing requires more concentration and takes greater overall effort.

One on one conversations are OK but you must work harder to keep up in groups and multi-talker situations.

More energy and focus is required to understand. Mental distractions interfere with hearing. Soft talkers and childrens voices are missed.

Punch-lines, little asides and quick comments are missed. Noisy places are stressful and conversations difficult to follow.

Interruptions throw you off track and filling-in-the-blank causes catch-up delay to understand.

Misunderstandings hearing from behind and need to face them to clearly understand.

More fatigue at the end of the day from extra hearing effort. Your social confidence suffers because of misunderstandings.

Do you have hearing loss? We recommend a baselinehearing test beginning at age 40 to catch it before others notice. Find out where you stand so you can take measures to preserve it!

Do You Also Have Tinnitus

Tinnitus can make it much harder to hear with any given level of hearing loss. If your tinnitus changes from time to time it will mean you can sometimes hear better on some occasions, even though your hearing remains the same, because the sound of the tinnitus will block out what you are trying to listen to.

Tinnitus can also disturb your sleep or make it difficult for you to concentrate. Please visit our pages on tinnitus for more information.

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How Quickly Did Your Hearing Change

Dont delay if you experience a sudden or very rapid loss of hearing. Its considered a medical emergency and you should seek urgent care at the Accident & Emergency department of your nearest hospital where you should be treated by an ENT doctor. Visit our page on sudden hearing loss.

Much more commonly, the change in hearing takes place over a long period of time, sometimes acquired over many, many years. Under the circumstances, you may find it difficult to know exactly when it started and it can take some time before you realise it is happening. Often, the people around you will notice it before you do for the obvious reason that if you dont hear something, you usually dont know you havent heard it.

Webpage published: 2018

Please Do Not Hesitate To Contact Our Hearing Care Specialists

Our team is on hand to offer you expert advice and to help you with your experience of hearing loss. From a consultation to tests and choosing the right hearing aid, we can help make the process a lot easier no matter your level of hearing.

Our hearing clinics are based in Horsham, Chichester and Seaford in the south of England and always welcome new patients. For details on how to best contact us, .

What our clients say

Two members of my family have just received excellent advice and treatment at the Chichester Centre.

My husband for ear plugs advice and my 12 year old son, who has been suffering with excessive ear wax building up for the past year or so and being told by GP that can do nothing except keep putting drops in.

Within 15 minutes he had his ears safely unblocked, using micro suction and washing, something the GP said was not available. My son is like a different child and can actually hear again.

Thank You!

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How Is Hearing Loss Defined

Hearing loss is the inability to hear sounds, either partially or totally and can occur in either ear or more commonly in both. It is generally a gradual process of deterioration but can be of sudden onset which must be treated immediately and preferably within the first 24 hours. Total or profound hearing loss is termed anacusis and is the total inability to perceive sound, though this word is rarely used medically.

A healthy ear can typically hear from 20Hz to 20KHz and this is called the dynamic range.

The speech range is from 500Hz to 6KHz though, for fidelity and timbre it is beneficial to hear beyond this and useful if the dynamic range is at least 10KHz.

If an individual can hear between 0-20 dB HL across the speech range, then hearing is considered normal. dB HL is the sound pressure level in decibels and absolute normal is 0 DBHL across the speech range. A person is considered to have a hearing loss if there is a diagnosed loss of 25 dB HL in one ear.

There are three categories of hearing loss, sensorineural, conductive and mixed:

Hearing Loss Has Several Origins And No One Is Immune

Millions of people in the United States deal with hearing loss, and hearing loss is actually one of the most prevalent disabilities affecting the population. It can affect literally any age group, socio-economic status, or career field.

We use our ears every day, leaving them open to many origins of hearing loss. For instance, loud sounds without proper ear protection can cause hearing loss over time, or even just normal aging has been shown to cause degrees of hearing loss. Genetic factors can also affect hearing loss, which can manifest either at birth or later in life. Autoimmune diseases and even traumatic events can impair your hearing.

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About Global Burden Of Disease

The Global Burden of Disease Study is a comprehensive regional and global research program of disease burden that assesses mortality and disability from major diseases.

Read more about the Global Burden of Disease Study here: or here:

If you think that you might have a genetic hearing loss, we recommend that you get your hearing checked by a hearing professional.

Causes Of Bilateral Hearing Loss

A bilateral hearing loss can be caused by many factors. The most common causes are: age, noise exposure, heredity and medication, which all mostly lead to a sensorineural hearing loss. You can also have a bilateral hearing loss if both of your ears ability to conduct sound into the inner ear are blocked or reduced. This is called a conductive hearing loss.

When the bilateral hearing loss is both conductive and sensorineural, it is called a mixed hearing loss.

If you think that you might have a bilateral hearing loss, we recommend that you get your hearing checked by a hearing professional.

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Hearing Impairment In Infants

The following signs may indicate a hearing problem:

• Before the age of 4 months, the baby does not turn their head toward a noise.
• The infant does not appear to be startled by a loud noise.
• The infant responds to you when they can see you, but respond far less or do not respond at all when you are out of sight and call out their name.
• The infant only seems to be aware of certain sounds.

Referral To A Specialist

Your GP may refer you to an ear, nose and throat specialist or an audiologist . The specialist will carry out further hearing tests to help determine what’s causing your hearing loss and recommend the best course of treatment.

Some of the hearing tests you may have include a:

• tuning fork test
• pure tone audiometry

These tests are described below.

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What Exactly Is Mild Hearing Loss

The definition of mild hearing loss varies depending on the researcher so results indicating the effects of mild hearing loss vary. Some audiologists define mild hearing loss as hearing thresholds of 15-30 dB, others use 20-40 dB. Statistics vary from 1-3% of the newborn population to 54/1000 in the school population. What ever criteria is used results in a significant number of affected children. The topic cannot be ignored.

What Should I Do If I Have Moderate Hearing Loss

If you have a moderate hearing loss then you are not able to hear soft to moderately loud noise. You are also unable to clearly understand speech in a noisy background.

A degree of hearing loss depends on the range of decibels or softer sound that an individual can hear. In the moderate hearing loss, people cannot hear sound between 40 to 70 dB. People may not able to hear sound in normal conversation like the ringing of the phone or answering a call. They get difficulty in hearing without their hearing aids. Also, it can be difficult to follow or hear sounds during normal conversations. Depending on an individuals hearing health, a moderate hearing loss can also be improved by using a hearing aid or middle ear implants.

You can purchase the latest hearing aids at a fair price through HearingSol, If you need more information or you have a query about Moderate Hearing Loss, just give us a call on +91-9899437202. We are always here to help you.

Hearing loss is divided into categories.

The most common categories of hearing loss classification are mild hearing loss, moderate hearing loss, severe hearing loss, and profound hearing loss.

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Unilateral And Bilateral Deafness

Single-sided deafness , or unilateral deafness, refers to hearing impairment in just one ear, while bilateral deafness is hearing impairment in both.

People with a unilateral hearing impairment may find it hard to carry on a conversation if the other person is on their affected side. Pinpointing the source of a sound may be more difficult, when compared with those who can hear well in both ears. Understanding what others are saying when there is a lot of environmental noise might be hard.

With little to no background noise, a person with unilateral deafness has virtually the same communicative abilities as a person with functional hearing in both ears.

Babies born with unilateral deafness tend to have developmental speech delays. They may find it harder to concentrate when they go to school. Social activities may be more challenging than it is for children with no hearing problems.

The symptoms of hearing impairment depend on its cause. Some people are born without being able to hear, while others suddenly become deaf due to an accident or illness. For most people, symptoms of deafness progress gradually over time.

Some conditions may have hearing loss as a symptom, such as tinnitus or stroke.

What Else Should I Know

If your child is diagnosed with a hearing problem, the audiologist will work closely with doctors, speech-language therapists, and education specialists to create a treatment plan for your child.

It also can help to meet other families of kids with hearing loss. Reach out to a local support group or ask a member of your care team about local programs where you can connect.

You also can find more information and support online at:

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Moderate Hearing Loss Treatment:

Moderate hearing loss treatment comes under sensorineural hearing loss.

Currently, there are neither medicinal nor surgical remedies for sensorineural hearing loss. Therefore the provision of appropriate hearing aid is recommended. These days, auditory systems work with state-of-the-art digital technology, processing sound signals in smaller processors. Thanks to this modern technology, these tools are able to adjust the environmental conditions and separate noise from a persons voice. There are several hearing aids for a person with moderate hearing loss.

Types Of Hearing Aids For The People Suffering From Moderate Hearing Loss

Behind-The-Ear Hearing aids that rest behind the ears and accommodate a larger battery as well as stronger amplification.

Receiver-In-the-Ear Hearing devices tend to be comfortable as they keep the ear canal open in order to reduce plugged-up sensation.

In-The-Ear These instruments are used for a wide range of hearing losses. It rests inside the ear rather than behind it.

In-The-Canal and Completely-In-The-Canal Instruments are generally smaller than ITE devices. They are more discrete than other devices. They should not effective with losses add require more manual dexterity.

Bone Anchored Hearing Aids

A Bone Anchored Hearing Aid transmits sound directly to the cochlea by vibrating the mastoid bone. A minor operation is needed to fix a screw to the skull, on which the hearing aid can be clipped on and off. A BAHA is removed at night and when you swim or take a shower.

Unlike a bone conduction hearing aid, it’s not uncomfortable to wear and is used for patients with conductive hearing loss, or in some patients who have no hearing in one of their ears.

Some people may benefit from newer types of implantable bone conduction hearing aids that are held onto the head with magnets instead of a connector through the skin. However, these are only available at some BAHA centres and may require a referral to a different BAHA centre.

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Hearing Aids Cost Too Much

At present, very few states require health insurers to cover the cost of hearing aids for people of all ages. As a result, 61 percent of users pay the bill themselves. At an average price of $1,675 per ear for equipment, fittings and evaluations, hearing aids can take a bite out of your budget. Factor in the high cost of hearing loss, however, and it is money well spent.

Lip Reading And Sign Language

Hearing loss can sometimes affect your speech, as well as your ability to understand other people. Many people with significant hearing loss learn to communicate in other ways instead of, or as well as, spoken English.

For people who experience hearing loss after they’ve learnt to talk, lip-reading can be a very useful skill. Lip-reading is where you watch a persons mouth movements while they’re speaking, to understand what they’re saying.

For people born with a hearing impairment, lip-reading is much more difficult. Those who are born with a hearing impairment often learn sign language, such as British Sign Language , which is a form of communication that uses hand movements and facial expressions to convey meaning.

BSL is completely different from spoken English and has its own grammar and syntax . Other types of sign language include Signed English and Paget Gorman Signed Speech.

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Degrees Of Hearing Loss

Now that you know the types of hearing loss let’s discuss the degrees to which you can experience this disability. Hearing loss itself is the process of a persons decibel threshold being unnaturally raised to the point that normal sounds are not recognizable anymore. What does this mean? Well, to understand this, you have to first know what a decibel threshold is.

How Does Moderate Hearing Loss Affect A Childs Learning

Children with moderate hearing loss will suffer from the following problems:

• Children with moderate hearing loss will not be able to hear important elements during discussion in class, such as content or key context without the help of visual cues.
• Children with moderate hearing loss are not able to hear all the sounds in a word and tend to leave off ing, s, and ed in their writing and speech.
• Children with moderate hearing loss will have more limited or smaller vocabulary when compared to their peers.
• Children with moderate hearing loss become very tired towards the end of sessions, which need intense concentration or which were conducted in noisy environment.
• Children with moderate hearing loss have difficulty in pronouncing some speech sounds.
• Children with moderate hearing loss misinterpret what is said, even though they are able to hear the speaker. Children with moderate hearing loss are aware that someone has said something however, they are not able to hear what is said clearly enough to understand.

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