What causes an elderly person to suddenly become deaf? Are there any signs of deafness?

When people reach a certain age, their body functions will atrophy. As for deafness in the elderly, it is also a phenomenon of organ degeneration. Hearing loss in the elderly is a common symptom. So, why do the elderly suddenly become deaf?

Causes of sudden deafness in the elderly:

1. Long-term exposure to noise can increase the risk of deafness in the elderly.

2. Among mental stress, long-term mental tension can cause nervous system disorders, thereby affecting the blood supply to the inner ear and leading to deafness.

3. Dietary habits lead to zinc deficiency, which affects the function of the cochlea and leads to the occurrence of presbycusis.

4. Vascular diseases such as hyperlipidemia and hypertension can cause the narrowing of the blood vessel lumen and reduce elasticity, affecting the blood flow to the inner ear, causing ischemia and hypoxia of the auditory nerve cells, and resulting in deafness.

5. Aging can cause the central nervous system and inner ear nerves to degenerate, resulting in deafness. The walls of the Eustachian tube can also harden and narrow with age, affecting the physiological function of the Eustachian tube and causing deafness.

Signs of deafness in the elderly:

1. It may be accompanied by tinnitus, which is often a high-frequency sound. It is intermittent at first, occurring in the dead of night, then gradually becomes continuous and can be heard during the day. Tinnitus often begins between the ages of 30 and 40. Its incidence increases with age, reaching its peak between the ages of 60 and 70, and then decreases rapidly. Most patients with tinnitus will get used to it as they age, and the tinnitus will disappear automatically.

2. There is often a phenomenon of auditory re-excitation, that is, patients often say "I can't hear others when they speak in a low voice, but it feels too noisy when they speak loudly." It often happens that he turns a deaf ear when someone asks him for a loan, but hears every word when someone scolds him. This is because he speaks in a low voice when borrowing money, but speaks in a high voice when scolding, so it is easy for people to misunderstand him as "playing deaf and dumb".

3. Speech resolution is not proportional to pure tone hearing. In most cases, pure tone hearing loss is not as severe as speech hearing loss. This phenomenon is more obvious as people age. That is, many elderly people cannot understand the content of speech even though their pure tone hearing is basically normal.

4. Hearing loss progresses slowly and is not noticed until years later. The elderly can chat and laugh happily with acquaintances and have few difficulties, but they will hesitate and answer irrelevant questions when talking to strangers. It is more difficult to be in noisy environments, especially to have difficulty communicating in group activities with many people.

Experts remind: Deafness in the elderly has always been a problem that plagues the health of middle-aged and elderly people and should be solved as soon as possible.

What should I do if an elderly person suddenly becomes deaf?

In daily life, we often hear that some people sleep all night and suddenly find that one ear is deaf when they wake up at breakfast the next day. Most of these patients develop sudden deafness after catching a cold, becoming overly tired, or experiencing mood swings. Sometimes the deafness occurs in an instant, but sometimes it lasts no longer than 24 hours, and the internal deafness reaches its peak. When they go to the hospital for examination, they are diagnosed with "sudden deafness." This disease develops suddenly and is common in healthy adults, especially middle-aged people, with a slightly higher incidence in women than in men. There are usually no precursors before the onset of the disease and often no obvious conscious cause.

The cause of this disease is often not very clear. Most scholars believe that it is related to the following lesions: one is vascular disease, and the other is viral infection. The third is autoimmune disease. Fourth, the membranous labyrinth is ruptured. Therefore, sudden deafness is not a damage to the sound transmission route, but a damage to the sound-sensing part of the inner ear.

The main symptom of this disease is deafness, which varies in degree. Generally, it is not complete deafness. Most people have residual hearing, often accompanied by tinnitus, which is mostly low-pitched. Sometimes there is a feeling of blockage in the ear, and some are accompanied by varying degrees of dizziness.

The prognosis of sudden deafness is better than other neurological hearing loss. Some can recover naturally without treatment, but the recovery process is different. Therefore, active treatment can achieve better results, and the earlier the better.