Ear Nose and Throat

Audiology

According to the American Academy of Audiology, one in three people concluded the age of 60 experience   some type of age-related hearing loss. In people over the age of 85, this count increases to one in two. Age-linked hearing loss is also known as presbycusis. Although age-related hearing loss is not a serious condition, it can have a important impact on your quality of life if left untreated.

 Hyperacusis is a health condition considered by over-sensitivity to certain frequency and volume ranges of sound, a collapsed tolerance to usual environmental sound. A person with severe hyperacusis has difficulty in tolerating everyday sounds, some of which may seem unpleasantly painfull and loud to that person but not to others. It can be acquired because of damage sustained to the hearing apparatus, or inner ear. There is speculation that the efferent portion of the auditory nerve has been affected, efferent meaning fibers that originate in the brain which serve to regulate sounds. This theory advises that the efferent fibers of the auditory nerve are selectively damaged, while the hair cells that allow the hearing of pure tones in an audiometric evaluation remain intact.