You are trying to listen to your friend in a crowded restaurant or catch up on a story someone is telling at a party. the problem? You can’t take advantage of most of it.
This raises some red flags for your hearing. and since then hearing loss And acoustic pollution Both are on the rise, as you know you have to look into it. So you may schedule an appointment with an audiologist to have your hearing checked. However, the test returns to normal. Your audiologist will happily tell you that your hearing is not impaired.
But then you will return to a noisy environment. This time, you know you’re not hearing very well. You don’t lose your mind. It is likely that you are dealing with a hidden hearing loss.
What is hidden hearing loss?
A diagnosis of a hidden hearing loss — also called a hidden hearing disorder — means that you hear well in quiet, normal environments, but struggle as soon as background noise appears.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Center, a research and teaching hospital at Harvard Medical School, recently published study summarized their findings after reviewing more than 100,000 patient records from a 16-year period. They found that one in ten suffers from a hidden hearing loss. In other words, 10% of people who visited their audiology clinic and had normal audiograms still had hearing problems.
It is difficult to estimate how many people suffer from this problem Hearing test We’ve historically used listening to tones in a quiet room that doesn’t pick up on hearing difficulties affected by background noise. In fact, this is why audiologists call this condition hidden hearing loss.
Massachusetts eye and ear researchers hypothesized that hidden hearing loss comes from a different cause than other hearing loss. Whereas, classic hearing loss arises when the sensory cells in your inner ear are damaged Any number of reasonsHidden hearing disorder is different. Researchers believe that it may develop due to communication and communication problems in the nerve cells of the brain.
Whatever the cause, hidden hearing loss can make daily life difficult. Let’s take a look at some of the ways a hearing disorder can affect you.
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Subtle signs of hearing loss
As the National Institutes of Health mentionedResearchers are still finding ways to accurately diagnose hidden hearing loss. It is important to be able to recognize the signs of this condition in yourself or your loved ones.
Some of the main symptoms include:
pass a hearing test but struggle with hearing in noisy environments you can pretend to hear or walk away following conversations when there is a lot of background noise avoiding certain situations that you know will be annoying difficulty concentrating once background noise reaches a certain level hearing people poorly Not true when you are not in a quiet place.
In the end, subtle symptoms of hearing loss only appear when there is other noise competing for your attention. For example, you may have trouble hearing a colleague in your busy office or a friend tell you a story at a social event.
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Get treatment
If you think you may have a hidden hearing loss, talk to your doctor and audiologist. If you took and passed a hearing test, explain to them that you think you have a hidden hearing disorder. Other tests can help identify it, including tests that involve trying to identify words in background noise (often called a speech-in-noise test).
The audiologist should be able to help you develop tools and strategies to improve your ability to hear and understand others. In general, this does not mean the use of Hearing aids in the traditional way because it amplifies all sounds, not just the person you want to hear. However, new technology allows certain models to filter out background noise or Amplification of sounds from certain directions And no other, which can be useful for this case.
Some methods you can try include:
Asking people to speak slowly (this is generally more effective than asking them to speak louder). Sit or stand directly across from the person you want to hear, Sit or stand somewhere with background noise behind you. In a booth or other place to prevent noise when eating out. Prioritize quieter times and settings when possible. Learn to read lips. Use closed captions. Use an app on your phone to give you a directional microphone.
The latter can be a blessing if you really suffer from a hidden hearing loss. Basically, these apps give you a way to turn your phone into a microphone. When you place it near the person you’re trying to hear, it feeds its sound into headphones or hearing aids. Some apps that provide microphone functionality include your phone’s orientation ear machinewhich was developed with funding from the National Institutes of Health, and Apple combined Live listen. There are also hearing aids and assistive devices with this technology.
Researchers are looking for ways to more effectively diagnose and treat hidden hearing loss. While the strategies and tools we just outlined should help you today, a more effective solution may emerge in the future.
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