Prevention of Loss of Hearing in Children, Young Adults and Older People

One of the painless, odorless, tasteless and invisible diseases is loss of hearing. Even though it is painless, it affects the person mentally and psychologically. Loss of hearing is commonly divided in to three types – conductive hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss and mixed hearing loss. Each of the hearing types has its own degrees of loss. They are categorized as mild loss, moderate loss, severe loss and profound loss.

The prevention steps of hearing loss are different for the different ages of people. This article gives some tips to prevent loss of hearing in children, young adults and older people.

Prevention of Loss of Hearing in Children

Some of the causes of loss of hearing in children are premature birth, the presence of a child in a neonatal intensive care unit, presence of high bilirubin during a blood transfusion, hereditary, complications at birth, and frequent ear infections. Nowadays, in the modern lifestyle community, more babies are born with hearing problems. It is difficult even for the mother to discover if their baby has ear problems. Untreated ear problems may even lead to life-long deafness. So it is very important for babies to have an ear screening test at birth. Most of the ear problems start at the age of three for children, hence regular ear checkups and screening tests are very important.

Generally, screening tests are done to almost all the new born in hospital. Screening test detects the complications in its initial stage thereby making the treatment easier and successful.

Since the hearing problems can occur at any age, children should be given a constant monitoring of their hearing capacity. Usually, babies start playing with their own voice and imitate simple words. If this action is absent or minimal, then it should be considered serious. Thus to summarize, constant monitoring on the children’s hearing capacity is the main preventative step taken to avoid unnecessary loss of hearing.

Prevention of Loss of Hearing in the Young Adult

Many young adults are affected by noise-induced hearing loss. This problem is mainly due to the loud, unwanted and hazardous sound. Young adults should be aware of the different causes of noise. Naturally there may be many times when noise can not be avoided but learning to protect one’s ears is the best prevention. Wearing ear protection like earplugs or earmuffs, covering the ears with hands, staying away from the source of noise over which one has no control, and enjoying music with less volume are some of the preventative steps to avoid hearing loss. These steps are mandatory for youth, if they want to lessen the risk of hearing loss as they grow older.

Immunizations for measles and other diseases can also be a cause for hearing problems in later periods of life.

Prevention of Loss of Hearing in Older People

Presbycusis and tinnitus are the common hearing problems found in older people. People who are not able to hear conversations or loud sounds are likely to have Presbycusis caused by changes in their inner ear as they grow older. Taking too much aspirin or certain antibiotics are the main cause of tinnitus in the later years. Be aware of the medicines and their side-effects before taking them. People with nervous problems are also likely to have tinnitus. Once the nervous problem is detected, make sure you have regular ear checkups, so that it can be controlled or treated in its initial stages.