Hearing Health

How the Ear Works

Your ears are extraordinary organs. They pick up all sounds around you and then translate this information into a form your brain can understand. Amazingly enough, this process is completely mechanical, unlike your other senses, which involve chemical reactions. Your hearing system is completely dependent on physical movement. The hearing mechanism in the human body is not only amazing in what it does, but it is a highly sophisticated and robust system.

In easy language, this is what happens. The sound waves are gathered by the outer ear and sent down the ear canal to the eardrum. The sound waves cause the eardrum to vibrate, which sets the three tiny bones in the middle ear into motion. The motion of the bones causes the fluid in the inner ear, or cochlea, to move. The movement of the inner ear fluid causes the hair cells in the cochlea to bend, and the hair cells change the movement into the electrical pulses. These electric impulses are transmitted to the hearing (auditory) nerve and up to the brain, where they are interpreted as sound.

About Hearing Loss

There are several types of hearing loss, which we categorize as conductive, sensory, neural or mixed. Problems affecting the outer or middle ear are referred to as conductive hearing loss. This loss affects a person's ability to conduct sound to the inner ear. Common in children with ear infections, conductive loss may also stem from ear wax, congenital malformations, or calcium growth. Conductive hearing loss is frequently temporary and treatable.

Sensory hearing loss, or nerve hearing loss, results from damage to the inner ear, meaning the tiny hair cells in the cochlea are damaged and not working well. Power tools, factories, guns, lawn mowers, hair dryers, and MP3 players create a cumulative effect and slowly and imperceptibly erode our hearing. We no longer hear sharply and we lose clarity of the spoken word. This type of hearing loss is almost always permanent.

As we age, a type of nerve hearing loss called presbycusis may develop because of a change in blood supply to the ear. This type of nerve related hearing loss may come from heart disease, high blood pressure, or vascular conditions. Neural hearing loss describes a problem with the connection from the cochlea to the brain.

Signs and Symptoms

Most hearing loss occurs gradually, so the symptoms may be hard to recognize. You may notice yourself turning up the volume of the television or asking people to repeat themselves. As our hearing begins to fade, we tend to forget how things sound and we start to live in a quieter world. The softer sounds in our daily world may go missed, yet unnoticed. It might be time to see a hearing specialist if you are experiencing one or more of the following problems:

• People seem to be mumbling
• You must strain to hear people talking
• You cannot hear someone calling from behind you or from another room
• You watch people's lips in conversation
• Following a conversation in a group of people is increasingly difficult
• It is difficult to hear on the telephone
• You are turning up the volume of the television or radio
• It's hard to hear in noisy environments, like a restaurant or sporting event
• You begin to curtail social activities due to the challenge of communicating
• Family, friends, and colleagues tell you they often have to repeat themselves