Presbycusis is the term used to describe the slow and progressive type of hearing loss that comes along with aging. At age 65, approximately one in every three persons has hearing loss. At age 75 half of the people have hearing loss. This condition happens gradually and often affects both ears. In the beginning one may not even realize that they have this condition because of its gradual occurance. At first they just may have problems with recognizing some sounds due to some other factors like some background noise. There are some reasons which can affect hearing loss in this case. These are gun shots, power tools, very loud music, industrial machinery etc. Basically anything that is loud affects hearing. Presbycusis is genetically determined.
The symptoms of this condition are: Hearing loss – usually the same in both ears, inability to hear high-pitched sounds, difficulty hearing some speech, dificulty hearing with background noise, tinnitus, progressive hearing loss progressive deterioration in hearing – age-related, progressive difficulty hearing higher frequencies, when other people speak it sounds slurred or mumbled, letters such as s and th are hard to distinguish, male voices are easier to hear than female voices due to the lower pitch, conversations are difficult to hear, particularly if there is background noise, certain noises are particularly annoying.
Presbycusis can be treated with the use of a hearing aid.
