Sensorineural Hearing Loss occurs due to damage in the inner ear. These damages may also include the pathway from the inner ear to the brain.
“It can take various forms from mild to strong which in some cases means total deafness.”
In most cases this illness cannot be cured, neither through medical surgery nor by alternative means. This type of hearing loss is the most common one.
Causes of Sensorineural Hearing Loss
There are many familiar causes of this illness. One of them is the tiny hair nerves that transfer sound from ear to brain and transform it into electric signals that may be damaged.
It can also come by birth due to some genetic disorders or in pregnancy where the mother experiences some diseases which can be passed to the baby.
Children and grown-up people can become victims of this disease through aging.
Additional Causes
- Blood channel illness
- Immune system malfunctions
- Various kinds of infections such as meningitis
- Different types of injuries may also affect and cause this loss
- Tumors
- The usage of specific medication
- Working in environments with a loud noise for a long period of time or wearing headphones with high volume for a longer period of time
- Of course, there are circumstances when the causes are unknown.
Symptoms
- Normal noises tend to sound too loud
- Hard to follow more people talking at the same time
- Man voices are easier to understand than women voices
- Voices from other people tend to be mumbled and blurry
- Hearing some buzzing and ringing in the ear
- Feeling dizzy and unbalanced
- High voices are difficult to verify and distinct from each other
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Sensorineural Hearing Loss and Loud Working Environments
People who live or work near airports and freeways are exposed to high levels of noise on a regular basis.
“These noises range from 65 to 75 dbA.”
When there is no protection from these high sounds people can easily suffer from this hearing loss. The United States and many other countries have made some health standards and protections for these people.
“Scientists have found that a 24-hour exposure to this range of dbA can significantly destroy a human’s hearing.”
The higher dbA or the exposure to loud noise is the smaller must be the presence in that area. For every 3 dbA increase in sound, the safe amount of exposure decreases by two factors.
“A person can safely be exposed to 85dbA for eight hours but for 91 dbA it is recommended only two hours of exposure.”
Music devices such as mp3s, mp4s, and iPods are also significant causes of hearing problems where even sounds reaching 70dbAs on a regular daily basis can affect a humans’ hearing.
Treatment of Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Treating and curing hair cells in the inner ear through gene therapy and cell regeneration is years away from today’s technology and medicine opportunities.
The most common way to treat it nowadays is with the help of hearing devices. It can also be cured with the help of cochlear implants which are surgically implanted hearing devices.
Some scientists suggest a drug called “Idebenone” which was invented for curing Alzheimer’s disease along with vitamin E to be a great combination for curing or just preventing this loss.
Various preventions and medications are still in the process of testing and analyzing but these mentioned are the most common ones in curing Sensorineural Hearing Loss.