Facts About Presbycusis, a Gradual Hearing Loss Attributed to Aging

People don't speak up the way they should. I'm not talking about speaking up concerning political or religious views. I'm talking about volume. Yes, I've become one of those old folks who has a slight hearing problem. As it turns out, I'm one of the twenty-five percent of adults over sixty-five who suffers from some hearing loss. After seventy-five, the number jumps up to seventy-five percent who have significant loss. I guess it's a comfort to know that I'm part of the twenty-eight million Americans who have enough hearing loss to be a problem in every day life.

I apparently have presbycusis, a gradual hearing loss attributed to aging. It seems to be a hereditary problem, but it can be a combination of heredity and chronic exposure to loud noises. I don't remember listening to all those loud noises (rock and roll?) for that long a time. I was hoping all it would be an excess of wax build-up, and indeed, the doctor did manage to dig out quite a chunk of gook. It helped, but not much.

Ears aren't simply funny-looking bumps on the sides of our heads, perfectly arranged for holding our glasses in place. That part's called the pinna, and it's formed to gather in sounds from all around and channel it into the outer ear canal, which carries the sound to the middle ear. The sounds make the eardrum (tympanic membrane) vibrate. "Eardrum" is a fitting word, since it is a thin membrane that works the same way a drumhead does. That vibration, in its turn, causes the three tiny bones in the middle ear to quiver. The three bones are the anvil, the hammer, and the stirrup. The stirrup is U-shaped, and is the tiniest bone in the human body.

Again the vibration is moved on, this time to the cochlea in the inner ear. The cochlea is a fluid-filled, snail-shaped structure that makes up the inner ear. It's lined with cilia, tiny hairs that move when vibrated. They, finally, stimulate a nerve cell. That sends a signal to the brain. There's seems to be a lot that can go wrong on the way.