Without the photo of a cat, you would have misunderstood what they said.
This decline in word recognition drastically degrades communication but is often easy to treat.
What Is Mild Hearing Loss?
Hearing is measured in levels from “normal” to “profound”. However, it is not just a matter of volume (aka. decibels) as you may have trouble hearing some frequencies and not others. For example, women and children often have higher pitch (higher frequency) voices. So, you may hear deeper voices perfectly and only struggle with word recognition when speaking to those with higher-pitched voices.
Speech Banana and Hearing Loss Levels
When your audiologist administers your diagnostic hearing evaluation, it will be visualized in an audiogram. If you have “normal” or better hearing at some frequencies and “mild” or increased hearing loss at other levels your results will look like a banana. This is why audiogram results are often referred to as a “speech banana”.
Hearing is measured in at least 5 levels:
- Normal
- Mild
- Moderate
- Severe
- Profound
What Causes High-Frequency Hearing Loss?
High-frequency hearing loss is the fastest-growing type of hearing loss in children and adults of all ages—not just those 60+. This is due to modern technology use. Specifically, how much time we spend wearing headphones and earbuds. The objective is often to minimize background noise, but mild to moderate hearing loss is a common side effect of high-decibel headphone use.
Before our current headphone use, dance clubs, concerts, machinery, loud appliances, explosions, and large crowds were some of the top causes of noise-induced hearing loss. Although still causes you must be mindful of, the more you wear headphones without measuring the decibels, the higher your risk for noise damage.
One-off exposure to high-decibel environments may cause temporary hearing loss while consistent exposure may cause permanent damage.
How Often Do We Wear Our Headphones?
The Headphones Listening Habits and Hearing Thresholds report found that 80% of 13- to 18-year-olds wears headphones for 1 to 3 hours per day. The average 30- to 49-year old wears headphones 5.5 hours per week. However, kids and adults who take public transportation to school and work may wear their headphones significantly more.
You may not realize just how much you wear your headphones. Some of the top reasons to wear headphones include:
- Listening to an audiobook during your commute.
- Listening to a podcast while working out.
- Watching a movie while traveling.
- Playing upbeat or soothing music any time of the day.
- Blocking out background noise at home and work.
- Listening to an online course, lecture, or digital curriculum.
What Is Safe Headphone Volume?
Think beyond volume to decibels, aiming for 70 decibels or lower. As a general rule, keep the volume at 60% or below. This can be challenging if background noise levels are high. You can monitor decibels by using the sound meter level on iOS devices or by downloading a decibel app.
What Are The Signs of High-Frequency Hearing Loss?
High-frequency hearing loss is gradual and only occurs in sounds between 2000 and 8000 Hz. Due to its gradual nature and increased presence in those of all ages, this cause of mild to moderate hearing loss is often underdiagnosed.
High Frequency-Hearing Loss Symptoms
- Having a harder time hearing women, children, and high-pitched voices.
- You no longer hear birds chirping, even in parks and forests.
- It is increasingly difficult to hear words that start with the letters “s”, “h”, “f”, and “th”.
- Regardless of spelling, you have difficulty hearing “p”, “f”, “n”, and “t” sounding words.
- Regularly confusing similar-sounding words. For example, try, shy, fly, ply, why, etc.
- It sounds like people are mumbling. You can hear that they are talking, but not what they are saying.
- Everyone sounds flat because you no longer hear the voice inflections that provide the nuance required for meaningful communication.
How to Treat Mild Hearing Loss?
Hearing aids will likely be prescribed for audiogram results that fall in the “mild” to “moderate” range. Today’s hearing aids are sleek, stylish, and comfortable. Most models are designed to be discreet, minimizing the stigma often associated with aging or a hearing disability diagnosed at any age. They are often Bluetooth-enabled to manage volume and sound filtering from your smartphone or to sync directly with your TV, computer, and other audio sources. Many utilize AI to self-regulate background noise and environmental noise.
Showing Signs of Hearing Loss?
Decreased speech clarity and hearing loss often go hand-in-hand. The younger you or your child are, the less likely you are to consider hearing loss.
If you live in or around Holmdel, New Jersey or Staten Island, New York and are experiencing any of the symptoms in the bullet point list above or it has been more than 3 years since you have had a hearing test—schedule an appointment with Dr. Stella Fulman. Dr. Fulman will complete a comprehensive hearing exam. If she identifies hearing loss, she will create a treatment plan tailored to your lifestyle.
Schedule your appointment today. For your convenience, we also offer house visits!
