How to Prevent and Delay Deafness in the Elderly?

Many elderly people think that it is a normal phenomenon for people to be deaf when they get old, but this is not entirely true. In the clinic, we often come across such elderly patients who have been deaf for a long time, but the examination reveals that it is only because too much cerumen in the ear has formed cerumen embolism, and the hearing will return to normal after pulling out the cerumen. Therefore, if an elderly person finds that his/her hearing has declined, he/she should not give himself/herself a diagnosis easily, but should go to the hospital to find out the cause.

At present, one out of every three adults over 65 years old in the world suffers from hearing impairment, and the proportion of senile deafness is as high as 30% to 50% among people aged 60-74 years old. Deafness is the second most common chronic disease in the elderly after arthritis and hypertension. Age-related deafness is a degenerative phenomenon of aging for which there is no effective treatment.

Therefore, prevention and early intervention is particularly important, such as pay attention to dietary hygiene, reduce fatty foods, appropriate physical exercise, quit smoking and alcohol, to prevent noise damage, avoid the application of ototoxic drugs, etc., which is very important for the prevention and control of the development of the disease, to delay the premature decline.

When deafness reaches a certain level, the effective way to improve hearing is to wear appropriate hearing aids, which can improve the quality of life of the elderly deaf patients. Cochlear implants can also play an important role in severely and profoundly deaf patients for whom hearing aids are ineffective or inefficient.

Do you know the dangers of noise to the ears?

Noise is a sound that is too loud and too noisy. We often encounter a lot of noise in our lives, some of which has a rapid effect on the sound, and some of which has a slow effect, all of which is related to the nature of the noise and the length of exposure to the noise.

In the clinic can come across such a person, firecrackers after the sudden hearing loss, this hearing loss we call blast deafness. It is caused by impulse noise (or shock wave) damage to the hearing organ. Impulse noise is strong, often accompanied by shock waves, often resulting in acute damage to the auditory organs, may appear tympanic membrane congestion, bleeding or perforation, middle ear auditory bone fracture and inner ear damage, etc., which can lead to varying degrees of hearing loss, and even lead to total deafness.

Clinical also encountered such patients, hearing loss is a slow progressive decline, some patients because of long-term work in a noisy environment, some patients consciously not exposed to noise exposure, careful questioning of the medical history, they tend to have a long time with the habit of headphones, such patients we call noise deafness, such patients with the tympanic membrane is normal.

These two kinds of deaf patients pure tone audiometry manifested as sensorineural deafness, visible V- or U-shaped curve. For blast deafness can be given to nutritional nerve, improve microcirculation of drug therapy, or hyperbaric oxygen therapy. For early noise deafness treatment is the same as blast deafness, away from the noise environment. Late treatment is mainly for rehabilitation or wearing hearing aids.

How can seniors with sudden deafness seek medical attention?

When sudden hearing loss occurs in the elderly, i.e. within minutes, hours or a day (usually around 12 hours), and in a few cases, within 3 days, hearing can be reduced to its lowest point. Elderly people with the disease should bring along information on previous medical consultations and go to the otology department of a nearby hospital in a timely manner, and have a family member accompany them during the consultation as much as possible.

The patient should explain to the doctor in detail whether there is any other general discomfort before the onset of the disease, whether there is any history of overexertion, mental depression, anxiety, emotional excitement, cold or flu, whether he/she can recall the exact time and place of the onset of the disease and the activities he/she was engaged in at that time, whether he/she has any other underlying diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, arteriosclerosis, autoimmune diseases, etc., the status of medication taking and the current status of its control, whether he/she has any history of traumas, and whether he/she has any other diseases other than sudden In addition to sudden hearing loss, there are no other ear symptoms, such as tinnitus, dizziness, blockage in the ear, pressure, and the sequence of the appearance of hearing loss, to provide these clues to help the doctor as soon as possible to clarify the diagnosis.

According to the general condition of the elderly, the doctor will do routine otological examination, observe the condition of the external auditory canal and tympanic membrane, and according to different medical conditions, the doctor may also do the following further examinations:

①Pure Tone Hearing Threshold Test: To determine the type of hearing loss (conductive, sensorineural or mixed), and to determine the degree of hearing threshold improvement;

(ii) Resonance test: this phenomenon is seen in inner ear disorders and can be used as one of the bases for the diagnosis of inner ear diseases;

(iii) tympanic chamber conductance test: to understand the functional status of the middle ear and the characteristics of conductive hearing impairment;

(iv) Cochlear electrogram and auditory brainstem evoked potentials: qualitative and localized diagnosis of deafness;

⑤ Vestibular function test: usually performed after vertigo is relieved to determine the degree of vestibular dysfunction.

⑥ Fistula test: to assist in the identification of Meniere’s disease, external lymphatic leakage, labyrinthitis and window rupture;

(vii) Laboratory tests: these include routine blood and urine tests and blood rheology to detect the presence of viral infections, renal dysfunction and blood viscosity;

(8) Imaging tests: brain pool imaging of the inner ear canal, CT and nuclear magnetism (enhanced if necessary) for the detection of lesions in the inner ear canal and cranial brain. Knowledge of these can help the sick elderly better get medical treatment and restore the loss of hearing as much as possible.