- What is sensorineural hearing loss?
Well in this video I'm gonna teach you what it is
and what your treatment options are, coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
and Founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Anthem, Arizona,
and on this channel I cover a bunch
of hearing related information to help make you
a better informed consumer, so if you're into that,
consider hitting the subscribe button.
Now there are only three types of hearing loss,
but the most common one is sensorineural,
and it's often abbreviated SNHL.
But what happens when you have sensorineural hearing loss
and what do you do about it?
Well let's jump right in.
First you have to understand how we hear.
Now the hearing system can be broken down
into three distinct sections:
the outer ear; the middle ear; and the inner ear.
The outer ear consists of your auricle,
your ear canal, all the way down to your ear drum.
The middle ear consists of that ear drum,
through the ossicles, or the bones of hearing,
and also your Eustachian tube and middle ear space.
The inner ear encompasses the cochlea,
which is also called your hearing organ.
A sensorineural hearing loss occurs
when there is damage to either the cochlea
or the structures inside of the cochlea,
or the auditory nerve that goes
from the cochlea up to your brain.
Now some common causes can be either head trauma,
or to toxic chemical exposure,
a tumor on your auditory nerve,
other genetic factors that you might have,
or noise exposure, and most commonly,
age related hearing loss.
A typical hearing test can easily identify
if you have a sensorineural hearing loss
as opposed to a conductive hearing loss
or a mixed hearing loss.
Earlier I mentioned several causes
of sensorineural hearing loss,
but the most common causes are noise exposure, and age.
And when you have noise exposed hearing loss
or age related hearing loss,
typically what happens is that the outer hair cells
in the high frequency range end up dying.
What this causes is this lack of perceived clarity
when people are talking to you,
and that's because high frequencies
encompass clarity in speech,
and low frequencies encompass volume in speech.
So this is typical for someone
who has the age related hearing loss
or a noise exposure related hearing loss,
to come in and say,
Well I feel like I can hear fine,
but people are just mumbling,
or I just can't understand what they're saying.
Another common complaint that I hear
when someone has a noise exposure related hearing loss
or age related hearing loss,
is that when they go into a noisy background,
that noise just overshadows everything.
And that's because if you have
good low frequency hearing still,
you'll have a phenomenon that's called
the upward spread of masking,
which means you hear the background noise really good,
but it drowns out all of those high frequency components
and takes away all of your clarity,
so you really can't understand speech in those situations.
So now that you know what causes sensorineural hearing loss,
how do you treat it?
Well treatment will depend on where the damage occurs,
either in the cochlea or along that auditory nerve,
so if you have outer hair cell death
inside of the cochlea, the outer hair cells
are your ears' natural amplifiers,
so when sound comes in through your ear,
those outer hair cells
make that basilar membrane vibrate more,
which sends a more powerful signal up to your brain,
but when those outer hair cells die,
your ear cannot naturally amplify sound
so it requires the use of a hearing aid.
Now it's important to understand
that a hearing aid only works in this situation
when the hearing aid is fit and programmed properly,
using real ear verification.
Now if you have excessive inner hair cell death,
a hearing aid isn't gonna provide you
a massive amount of benefit.
Hearing aids are really only good
when it comes to outer hair cells.
So when inner hair cells end up dying
beyond a rate of which a hearing aid can help,
then you start becoming a candidate for a cochlear implant,
and what happens with the cochlear implant
is that you bypass the cochlea entirely
and you stimulate the auditory nerve electrically.
Now if you have an acoustic neuroma,
which means a tumor growing on your auditory nerve,
you could potentially get benefit from hearing aids
if that tumor is small and isn't growing,
but if that tumor has to be removed
you'll be left with no hearing
on the side that you had the tumor on.
When that happens, you become a candidate
for either a cross device, which sends sound
from your bad ear, or that ear that no longer hears,
and reroutes it to your better ear,
so your better ear can use the sound
from that side of your head.
The other option is using a bone anchored hearing device
that is actually implanted on the back of your skull,
vibrates your skull,
and helps your ear on the opposite side hear.
In some extreme cases where both auditory nerves have tumors
and they both have to be removed,
you actually could potentially be a candidate
for an auditory brain stem implant,
which, just like the name suggests,
is an implant right on your brain stem
which will then trigger your brain to hear.
Over 90% of hearing losses are sensorineural in nature,
and a large portion of those require hearing aids
as the main treatment option.
That being said, it's impossible to know exactly
which treatment option is right for you
unless you have your hearing evaluated properly
by an audiologist.
If you feel like you're experiencing hearing loss,
your best option is to schedule an appointment
with an audiologist, so they can find out
exactly what type of hearing loss you have.
That's it for this video, if you have any questions
leave them in the comments section below.
If you liked the video, go ahead and give it a thumbs up,
and if you wanna see more videos just like this one,
go ahead and hit the subscribe button.
I'll see you next time.
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