What is Sensorineural Hearing Loss? - Ear Problems — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00- What is sensorineural hearing loss?
2. 0:02Well in this video I'm gonna teach you what it is
3. 0:04and what your treatment options are, coming up.
4. 0:08(upbeat music)
5. 0:12Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
6. 0:14and Founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Anthem, Arizona,
7. 0:17and on this channel I cover a bunch
8. 0:19of hearing related information to help make you
9. 0:20a better informed consumer, so if you're into that,
10. 0:23consider hitting the subscribe button.
11. 0:25Now there are only three types of hearing loss,
12. 0:27but the most common one is sensorineural,
13. 0:29and it's often abbreviated SNHL.
14. 0:32But what happens when you have sensorineural hearing loss
15. 0:35and what do you do about it?
16. 0:36Well let's jump right in.
17. 0:38First you have to understand how we hear.
18. 0:40Now the hearing system can be broken down
19. 0:42into three distinct sections:
20. 0:44the outer ear; the middle ear; and the inner ear.
21. 0:47The outer ear consists of your auricle,
22. 0:49your ear canal, all the way down to your ear drum.
23. 0:53The middle ear consists of that ear drum,
24. 0:55through the ossicles, or the bones of hearing,
25. 0:58and also your Eustachian tube and middle ear space.
26. 1:02The inner ear encompasses the cochlea,
27. 1:04which is also called your hearing organ.
28. 1:07A sensorineural hearing loss occurs
29. 1:09when there is damage to either the cochlea
30. 1:10or the structures inside of the cochlea,
31. 1:12or the auditory nerve that goes
32. 1:14from the cochlea up to your brain.
33. 1:16Now some common causes can be either head trauma,
34. 1:19or to toxic chemical exposure,
35. 1:21a tumor on your auditory nerve,
36. 1:23other genetic factors that you might have,
37. 1:26or noise exposure, and most commonly,
38. 1:29age related hearing loss.
39. 1:31A typical hearing test can easily identify
40. 1:33if you have a sensorineural hearing loss
41. 1:35as opposed to a conductive hearing loss
42. 1:37or a mixed hearing loss.
43. 1:39Earlier I mentioned several causes
44. 1:40of sensorineural hearing loss,
45. 1:42but the most common causes are noise exposure, and age.
46. 1:46And when you have noise exposed hearing loss
47. 1:48or age related hearing loss,
48. 1:50typically what happens is that the outer hair cells
49. 1:52in the high frequency range end up dying.
50. 1:55What this causes is this lack of perceived clarity
51. 1:58when people are talking to you,
52. 2:00and that's because high frequencies
53. 2:02encompass clarity in speech,
54. 2:03and low frequencies encompass volume in speech.
55. 2:06So this is typical for someone
56. 2:08who has the age related hearing loss
57. 2:10or a noise exposure related hearing loss,
58. 2:12to come in and say,
59. 2:13Well I feel like I can hear fine,
60. 2:15but people are just mumbling,
61. 2:17or I just can't understand what they're saying.
62. 2:19Another common complaint that I hear
63. 2:21when someone has a noise exposure related hearing loss
64. 2:23or age related hearing loss,
65. 2:25is that when they go into a noisy background,
66. 2:28that noise just overshadows everything.
67. 2:30And that's because if you have
68. 2:31good low frequency hearing still,
69. 2:33you'll have a phenomenon that's called
70. 2:35the upward spread of masking,
71. 2:36which means you hear the background noise really good,
72. 2:38but it drowns out all of those high frequency components
73. 2:41and takes away all of your clarity,
74. 2:43so you really can't understand speech in those situations.
75. 2:46So now that you know what causes sensorineural hearing loss,
76. 2:49how do you treat it?
77. 2:50Well treatment will depend on where the damage occurs,
78. 2:53either in the cochlea or along that auditory nerve,
79. 2:56so if you have outer hair cell death
80. 2:59inside of the cochlea, the outer hair cells
81. 3:02are your ears' natural amplifiers,
82. 3:04so when sound comes in through your ear,
83. 3:05those outer hair cells
84. 3:07make that basilar membrane vibrate more,
85. 3:09which sends a more powerful signal up to your brain,
86. 3:12but when those outer hair cells die,
87. 3:15your ear cannot naturally amplify sound
88. 3:17so it requires the use of a hearing aid.
89. 3:19Now it's important to understand
90. 3:21that a hearing aid only works in this situation
91. 3:24when the hearing aid is fit and programmed properly,
92. 3:27using real ear verification.
93. 3:29Now if you have excessive inner hair cell death,
94. 3:31a hearing aid isn't gonna provide you
95. 3:33a massive amount of benefit.
96. 3:35Hearing aids are really only good
97. 3:36when it comes to outer hair cells.
98. 3:38So when inner hair cells end up dying
99. 3:40beyond a rate of which a hearing aid can help,
100. 3:43then you start becoming a candidate for a cochlear implant,
101. 3:46and what happens with the cochlear implant
102. 3:48is that you bypass the cochlea entirely
103. 3:50and you stimulate the auditory nerve electrically.
104. 3:53Now if you have an acoustic neuroma,
105. 3:55which means a tumor growing on your auditory nerve,
106. 3:58you could potentially get benefit from hearing aids
107. 4:01if that tumor is small and isn't growing,
108. 4:04but if that tumor has to be removed
109. 4:06you'll be left with no hearing
110. 4:08on the side that you had the tumor on.
111. 4:10When that happens, you become a candidate
112. 4:12for either a cross device, which sends sound
113. 4:15from your bad ear, or that ear that no longer hears,
114. 4:18and reroutes it to your better ear,
115. 4:20so your better ear can use the sound
116. 4:22from that side of your head.
117. 4:24The other option is using a bone anchored hearing device
118. 4:27that is actually implanted on the back of your skull,
119. 4:29vibrates your skull,
120. 4:31and helps your ear on the opposite side hear.
121. 4:34In some extreme cases where both auditory nerves have tumors
122. 4:37and they both have to be removed,
123. 4:39you actually could potentially be a candidate
124. 4:41for an auditory brain stem implant,
125. 4:43which, just like the name suggests,
126. 4:46is an implant right on your brain stem
127. 4:48which will then trigger your brain to hear.
128. 4:51Over 90% of hearing losses are sensorineural in nature,
129. 4:55and a large portion of those require hearing aids
130. 4:58as the main treatment option.
131. 5:00That being said, it's impossible to know exactly
132. 5:03which treatment option is right for you
133. 5:05unless you have your hearing evaluated properly
134. 5:08by an audiologist.
135. 5:09If you feel like you're experiencing hearing loss,
136. 5:12your best option is to schedule an appointment
137. 5:14with an audiologist, so they can find out
138. 5:16exactly what type of hearing loss you have.
139. 5:18That's it for this video, if you have any questions
140. 5:20leave them in the comments section below.
141. 5:22If you liked the video, go ahead and give it a thumbs up,
142. 5:24and if you wanna see more videos just like this one,
143. 5:26go ahead and hit the subscribe button.
144. 5:28I'll see you next time.
145. 5:31(upbeat music)