Hearing loss, which was once associated with the elderly, is becoming a prevalent problem in youngsters and baby boomers. Exposure to loud music for extended period of time tops the list of noise induced hearing loss.

There are 3 types of hearing loss, categorized by the part of the auditory system that is affected.

Conductive hearing loss occurs when sounds are not properly conducted through the ear. This type of loss is characterized by a general reduction in sound level or the inability to hear faint sounds. It is often caused by a blockage in the ear, such as wax. Other causes can be an ear infection or allergy that stops sounds from traveling properly in the middle ear.

Sensorineural hearing loss occurs when there is damage to the middle ear or the nerve pathways of the ear. Age and exposure to loud noises are some of the factors that contribute to this type of hearing loss.

Mixed hearing loss is a combination of conductive and sensorineural hearing losses, which occurs when there is damage to both the inner and outer ear areas. This type of hearing loss can be prevented.

The degree of hearing loss refers to the thresholds at which soft noises can be heard. There are 5 main categories: normal loss, mild loss, moderate loss, severe loss and profound loss. A hearing test can determine the degree of hearing loss you have.

Here are some tips for preventing hearing loss.

1. Most people turn up the volume on their television or radio in an attempt to drown out other noises. We live in a noisy environment. If you turn up the volume to the extent that you can no longer hear outside noises it is probably too loud. If others can hear the sound from your earbuds or headphones, it means the volume is too high.

2. Ear bud headphones have been found to be more damaging than over-the-ear style headphone. Ear buds creates more impact as they are closer to the inner ear. The advantage of over-the-ear style headphones is that they have noise cancellation that eliminates background noise without having to turn up the volume.

3. Reduce exposure time to loud noises. This includes all types of noise such as lawn mowers, food mixers, hair dryer and the like.

4. Use ear protection such as ear plugs or ear muffs wherever exposed to dangerous noise levels, be it at home, at work and at play.

5. As a parent, teach your child to listen to music or television at a safe level.

Hearing loss does not only affect people approaching old age. It is also prevalent in children. In fact, hearing loss is being detected in children at a younger age than ever before.

Type of hearing loss

The most common type of hearing loss among children is called sensorineural which occurs due to damage of the inner ear. The damage can be caused by an infection, injury or most commonly, through exposure to loud noise. This type of damage cannot be repaired.

While sensorineural hearing loss does not permanently improve, it also does not get any worse. It involves a lowering in the ability to hear soft sounds, to hear clearly and can affect how well you understand speech. Typically, this type of hearing loss can be improved through the use of a hearing aid. Other types of hearing loss are conductive and mixed. Conductive hearing loss is when sounds are not conducted to the inner ear properly and can often be corrected with surgery. Mixed hearing loss involves both sensorineural and conductive. A hearing professional can assess the type and degree of hearing loss your child has.

What causes hearing loss in children

Most types of hearing loss is not genetic but is noise-induced, brought on through outside noise that is too loud. There are noises that you have no control over and then there are noises that you create yourself.

Loud music, particularly music played directly into the ear via earbuds, is one way that kids are getting exposed to noise that can damage the ears. A recent study in Australia found that children as young as three have shown signs of permanent hearing loss due to listening to loud music. Do you know that listening to music that is too loud for more than 5 to 10 minutes can produce hearing damage? Shocking but true.

Another similar cause of hearing loss is playing musical instruments too loudly. It is found that playing and practicing in a school band or orchestra can actually cause hearing loss. This is true when the music is practiced in an enclosed area. The National Association for Music Education (MENC) even issued a statement that educators need to recognize music as a cause of noise-induced hearing loss.

What can be done

The most important thing you can do as a parent is to become aware of the hazards of noise-induced hearing loss. Familiarize yourself with the causes of hearing loss and teach your children to take preventative measures.

First, try to ensure that you enforce strict volume guidelines on things such as iPod and other listening devices. Listen to the device yourself to determine what you feel are safe volume levels.

Get your children to use earplugs. Just like the helmet helps keep a child safe and protected when riding a bicycle, earplugs can help keep ears safe from loud noises. Ensure that your child wears the earplugs when practicing in the band or even when mowing the lawn.

The lesson here is to be forewarned. Use precautions and common sense to set limits for children. Teach them the importance of taking care of their hearing and help them understand when noise levels are too loud.

Behind the ear, also known as BTE, hearing aids are far and away the most commonly used type of hearing aid. These hearing aids are also what most people picture when hearing aids are mentioned. The electronics which make a BTE hearing aid function are housed in a plastic case which fits behind the ear and has a tube that connects it to an ear mold which fits in the ear canal.

They are designed to accommodate the entire spectrum of hearing losses, from the mild to the severe. Although they are more conspicuous then hearing aids that fit entirely in the ear canal, they have a number of benefits that appeal to a wide variety of hearing impaired individuals. In addition, BTE hearing aids come in a number of sizes, shapes and colors. So some behind the ear models are much less conspicuous then others.

Since behind the ear hearing aids are larger then their completely in the canal, or CIC, counterparts, they can more easily house a bigger amplifier and much stronger battery and therefore may be especially beneficial to individuals with a more severe hearing loss. BTE hearing aids are also rather versatile in that they come in the most traditional analog style as well as in the recently popularized digitally powered style of hearing aids.

When budgetary constraints are an issue, behind the ear devices definitely win out over hearing aids which fit completely in the ear canal. Due to their larger size, other groups of people to whom BTE hearing aids have more appeal then CIC models include the elderly, arthritis sufferers and others with fine motor control disabilities and related issues.

Finally since CIC models necessitate the wearing of a heavier device in the canal then just the lightweight ear mold attached to BTE hearing aids, there tends to be less ear canal irritation with the former.

In the late 1800s the first commercially manufactured hearing aids were patented and became available to the public. The first behind the ear hearing aids came on the scene over fifty years ago.

Prior to this, hearing aids were basically amplifiers worn somewhere on the body and these were heavy and expensive, due in part to rapid battery consumption. With the advent of the smaller junction transistor in 1952, widespread BTE hearing aid use became more of a reality.

Due to improvements in the technology of circuitry,1964 saw another boom in use of BTE devices and the use of body worn hearing aids dropped to less then twenty percent. By 1972 prototypes for hearing aids which could be programmed to a variety of listening situations, were being created. The following twenty years showed continued improvements and advances in hearing aid technology.

Volume controls were added to most behind the ear devices in the 1990s and digital hearing aids started appearing in the mid nineties. There has been continued new arrivals in the hearing aid world since then such as remanufactured hearing aids, disposable hearing aids and over the counter hearing aids. Who knows what the future of behind the ear hearing aid technology holds, the possibilities are endless

Are you suffering from a loss of hearing? As one of our most acute sense, the loss of your hearing can really impact you and its imperative that you act quickly whenever it sets in. Early detection will allow you to stop potential damage that can lead to deafness. The real challenge is that we all lose our hearing to a certain extent and as we get older we tend to lose our ability to hear certain frequencies. babies and small children have very sharp hearing but the aging process gradually evens this out.

The causes of hearing loss can be aging as I already mentioned but there are also a number of diseases that can affect it. What is more common though is when your ear drums get damaged. Damages caused by loud noise is very common and people who work in the entertainment industry are very susceptible to this. Constant loud noise is really bad for your ear drums and is one of the main causes for losing your hearing.

People who work in factories or construction sites also suffer a lot from this. Mine workers who are exposed to loud explosions tend to suffer most though and if you work in an environment like this you really have to protect your ears.

So, how do you know if you are suffering from hearing loss and when should you seek help? well, the most obvious sign is if you cannot hear what other people (roughly the same age as you) are hearing. When you notice a significant difference between your hearing ability in your left and/or right ear, then one of them might be damaged.

Hearing the television, the radio and people you interact with every day is the best way to judge your level of hearing. if you find that people have to repeat themselves to you or that you have to turn your head towards them for you to hear them, then you are probably suffering from hearing loss.

There is a lot of help and assistance available. Hearing aids are very small and very effective these days and in many cases alternative treatments can also help a lot. Its best to speak to a professional and seek help as soon as possible.

When it comes to making one's way to work, more and more people spend at least an hour each direction. This means that there are long stretches of time to kill just waiting to arrive at work, and for many Americans, these stretches are a time to sit back and listen to music or putter on a Smartphone. And while someone who is fortunate enough to be riding in the quiet car of an Amtrak train or making a commute somewhere without a noisy environment all around doesn't need to crank up the volume on headphones, countless other commuters engage in daily activities that actually tend to speed up hearing loss.

The trouble is that most people do not realize this, and after the damage has been done is the only time when the troubles and shortcomings become apparent. The reason for this is the fact that hearing loss is a gradual process most of the time, especially in regards to constant exposure to louder levels of noise. People tend to simply turn the volume up to compensate for the trouble that might be apparent, and then forget about whether or not it was easy to make out particular sounds. Likewise, those who are in particularly loud subway cars or blaring songs from car stereos are going to be trying to compensate for the noise levels around, meaning that it is sometimes possible to not even be aware of how loud things are to begin with.

Those in cities are more likely to be dealing with hearing loss as a result of commuting, because cities are generally louder places. Anyone trekking in from the suburbs on a train knows that the train itself is noisy, as are many of the people on the same car. So putting in a pair of earbud headphones is not a productive way to drown out the surrounding sounds, yet countless people try this technique every day. The result is usually tinny blasts of sound coming from everyone in a train car, which is just another thing for people to try to drown out by turning up their own volume.

While it might not sound fun to suffer through an hour-long commute in silence, this is more often than not the best option for one's ears. Because there are so many other noises going on, unless someone on a train has invested in a nice pair of noise-canceling headphones, the racket level is going to be what causes the trouble. And for this reason, it makes more sense to stick with the paper or an app on an iPhone, and to save the music listening for at home, when it's actually feasible.

Likewise, those driving to and from work every day are also not immune to trouble with hearing. After all, blasting the radio on the way to work or on the way home is another surefire way to wear down one's hearing. And the trouble with this is often people don't realize how loud music is to begin with, so they keep turning it up. The best bet is to keep the volume knob at 12 o'clock on the dial, and try to not blast songs unless it is absolutely necessary to sing along!

Any living thing with the ability to hear has the potential to experience hearing loss. Of course, this goes for dogs. Any dog can be hard of hearing in one or both ears. The cause for hearing loss in dogs is similar to that in humans. Dogs can be born deaf or develop hearing loss due to genetics, illness, injury or old age. Since the reason for having a pet dog is companionship, the isolation of hearing loss in dogs can be particularly heartbreaking for its owner. There are organizations which officially take the position that dogs that cannot hear should be put to sleep. Some breeds, naturally, tend to have more congenital deafness than others. Dalmatians, for instance, suffer more from hearing loss in dogs than most breeds. Among Dalmatian owners, the issue of whether to raise a deaf dog or put it down is subject to hot debate. Like people, dogs are social. Unlike people, dogs do not depend on conversation skills to form social circles. At the center of the debate over hearing loss in dogs is the ability to train a deaf dog.

To Keep or Not to Keep

A dog owner who suspects that it may be deaf can have it tested by a specialized veterinarian. The BAER test is 100% accurate and can be performed on any dog over the age of six weeks. Most owners, however, can rely on observation to determine whether a dog can hear. Any reasonably alert dog will respond to sounds, especially sounds that indicate the presence of an affectionate owner. Sounds like the jingling of keys will cause different reactions in dogs with hearing loss in only one ear.

An important issue concerning hearing loss in dogs is the ability of an owner to teach a deaf dog the skills it needs to be safe. A dog that can't be called away from a busy street can never be allowed near a busy street. The safety of others is also a consideration. A dog's owner should be able to calm an excited dog that is in a position to harm another person or animal. While no studies have been done to compare hearing with non-hearing dogs, owners who know from experience that hearing loss in dogs has not affected their ability to train and communicate with their own dogs will testify that a dog's personality has more to do with its success as a pet than its hearing does. Dogs, after all, are not expected to communicate with human language - hearing or not. And dogs do not depend on the sense of hearing as much as humans do. You can not sneak up on a dog even if it can't hear. Most dogs have sharp eyes and a keen sense of smell, after all.

According to the Better Hearing Institute, there are about 34.5 million people with hearing loss in the United States. Some common causes for hearing loss include noise exposure, age, family history, and diabetes. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), a person with diabetes is twice as likely to have hearing difficulty as someone who does not suffer from the disease.

Studies show that as much as 54% of subjects with diabetes have a mild or greater high frequency loss as compared to 32% of subjects without diabetes. Also, those with pre-diabetes are at greater risk (30% higher) for hearing damage as compared to those without the disease. If someone with diabetes has been exposed to loud noise or have a family history of hearing loss then the chances of having a loss is quite high.

It is recommended that someone with the disease protect their ears when they are exposed to noise at home or in their place of employment to prevent further damage. The damage from diabetes occurs in the nerves and blood vessels of the inner ear. Diabetes also leads to heart disease and stroke which can also lead to damage to the inner ear. Physicians should be encouraging patients to get their hearing tested if they have diabetes or at risk for developing the disease. This should be considered just as important as vision screenings or other screenings performed for patients with diabetes.

People with diabetes should have regular hearing evaluations to identify potential damage to the inner ear. If identified early then the appropriate treatment can be implemented. There are several products that can assist someone suffering from even a mild hearing loss. Some of those include amplified telephones, TV listening devices, and even hearing aids for those noticing a significant deficit in their hearing.