Hearing Loss in Adults & Seniors
Aging is the most common cause for seniors. Hearing deterioration usually occurs gradually and it is often very advanced before people recognize and finally accept that they have a problem. A person with a moderate loss or more, communication difficulty might be noted during daily communications.
Sudden hearing losses are relatively less common among general population. Causes include perforation of ear drum (resulted from insertion of foreign object or during diving), head trauma and virus infection to the inner ear and/or auditory nerve. Although middle ear infections are more often found on children, it is not uncommon to see adults and seniors suffering from hearing loss caused by short term or long term middle ear infection.
The following checklist gives you an idea of you or your family members’ hearing status and whether you / he / she are likely to have a hearing loss.
Please answer "yes" or "no" to the following questions:
- Do you hear people talk but have difficulty in understanding what they say?
- Do you often have to ask people to repeat what they’ve said?
- Do you often experience hearing difficulty when conversing over the phone?
- Do you need to sit close to the speakers for better speech clarity in meetings?
- Do you often misunderstand what people say?
- Do you have difficulty in following conversations in noisy environment?
- Do you often need to turn up the volume of TV or radio?
- Do people seem to mumble or speak unclearly all the time?
- Do you often have difficulty in localizing the sound?
- Has anyone suggested that you have a hearing loss?
If you or your family members say “yes” to more than two questions, we suggest you seek medical advice from a general practitioner or otolaryngologist, or make an appointment with our Hearing Health Consultant for a full audiological assessment and professional advices on rehabilitation.
