As we age, it is not uncommon for hearing loss to sneak up on us. Signs of hearing loss can include difficulty hearing in background noise and asking others to repeat themselves more frequently. In fact, as many as one third of Americans between ages 65 and 74 and nearly half of those over age 75 have some degree of hearing loss (!) (NIDCD, 2010). The term for hearing loss related to aging is presbycusis. Over time our auditory system can begin to lose the acuteness we had earlier in life. Today’s article will explore why we experience presbycusis as well as how we can identify and manage the signs of hearing loss.
To understand presbycusis, let’s quickly look at the biology of hearing. Our inner ear, the cochlea, is comprised of tiny hair-like cells aptly termed hair cells. In a normal functioning ear, these hair cells bend in response to sound entering the inner ear. As we age, these cells can become more brittle and thus more prone to breaking or shearing. Additionally, many of us have had exposure to hazardous loud noise including gunfire, power tools, loud concerts, etc. The sum of our past noise history plus natural aging of our inner ear is what often then comprises presbycusis. (Yes, those loud concerts in your younger years were not forgotten by your ears!)
With presbycusis, hearing loss generally begins in the higher frequency ranges first. This frequency range does not generally affect our volume perception but rather our perception of clarity. You can experiment with this at home. Try turning the treble down on a TV or music player. You can still hearing all the noise and overall volume, but the clarity and detail will be missing. This is why difficulty hearing in groups or background noise are often the first complaints of those starting to experience presbycusis. Our brains are keen to the speech-intensive higher frequencies to tell us what is different from the background noise around us. When we start missing the higher frequencies, words like “spark” turn into “park” and we miss the entire meaning of what is being spoken.
Presbycusis is defined as hearing loss progression with age. This is why hearing loss often has the tendency to sneak up on us. But how can we avoid hearing loss “sneaking up on us?” The recommendation is that all individuals over the age of 50 should have a baseline hearing test performed or sooner if difficulties are noticed. Life is too short to miss out on important conversations with our loved ones. At our office we love to educate (can you tell?) and take great efforts to provide hearing solutions accessible to all lifestyles and budgets so that aging and hearing loss doesn’t mean missing out on life.