How Hearing Loss Can Impact Your Life

When it comes to hearing loss, there are several different categories that are broadly differentiated. Dividing hearing loss into such categories helps with diagnosis and treatment. However, such labels can be misleading and you may mistakenly think that your own hearing loss is insignificant. This is by no means the case as even minimal hearing loss can have a major impact on your life. Here’s what you should know about the different categorizations of hearing loss.

• Minimal. If you have minimal hearing loss, you’ll likely have few difficulties in communication, but you probably won’t hear background noises, such as the sound of a leaky faucet. While this might not seem like a big deal, hearing loss can worsen over time, so it’s important that you stay on top of things and remain aware of where on the spectrum you fall.

• Mild. With mild hearing loss comes the first significant barrier to communication. You may find yourself asking people to repeat themselves if they’re soft spoken or they’re speaking to you from a distance.

• Moderate. If you find yourself struggling to understand conversations, you likely have moderate hearing loss. Without hearing aids, you’ll probably be able to hear people speaking but won’t be able to make out exactly what it is they’re saying.

• Moderately severe. In the moderately-severe level of hearing loss most speech is inaudible without the help of hearing aids. This leads to increasing problems in communication.

• Severe. For those who fall into the category of severe hearing loss, even loud speech will be difficult to make out. Furthermore, noises as loud as a baby crying may go unheard. At this point, it’s crucial that you get hearing aids, if you don’t have them already.

• Profound. Finally, profound hearing loss is defined as the inability to hear loud speech and loud sounds, like airplanes flying overhead, fire alarms, or traffic on a busy highway. Naturally, this can be quite debilitating without the support of hearing aids or cochlear implants.

Audiology Clinics in Alberta

Remember, no level of hearing loss is insignificant. At Soundwave Hearing Care, we offer hearing tests that will help you find out which category you fall into and offer tailored treatment options to fit your degree of hearing loss. If you need hearing aids, we can provide these too, along with the necessary fittings. We also offer custom hearing protection, which can help protect you from hearing loss. Contact us today to schedule an appointment at our Calgary, Lethbridge, Grande Prairie or High River clinic.