Presbycusis is age related loss of hearing that occurs in most people as they grow old. It is quite common to develop loss of hearing as one gets older. Around 50-60% of people of age group 75-85 develop hearing loss. Usually they have difficulty in hearing high pitched sounds. Old aged people can have the ability to hear low pitched sounds like chirping of a bird but they have problems in hearing loud noise. This condition is known as presbycusis. A change that happens in the inner ear is the main cause for this problem. Sometimes it can be due to defective nerve pathways. People with this problem may not realize that they have developed partial loss of hearing since this process happens gradually.
Symptoms :
Some of the common signs of presbycusis are difficulty in hearing the voice and understanding the speech. The sounds seem less clear for aged people and this is more particular for high pitched sounds. They feel that speech of others is often slurred. With more background noise aged people have little understanding of speech. There will be roaring noise in their ears or hissing sound which is described as tinnitus. It is difficult to understand a woman’s voice with high pitch when compared with that of a man’s voice. For people affected with this problem certain sounds will be very louder than original tone.
Causes :
Loss of hearing in presbycusis is caused by disorders in the auditory nerve present in the inner ear. It is described as sensorineural disorder which happens as gradual changes or loss of hearing. Several factors like hearing repeated noise of traffic and working in noisy environment can cause these changes causing sensorineural loss of hearing. There will be loss of sensory receptors present in the inner ear due to aging process. Sometimes underlying medical issues and intake of certain medications like aspirin (for long) can cause this problem. It is believed to be caused due to hereditary factors.