How high frequency hearing loss affects your life
Why do I hear people but not understand them?
One of the most common questions and biggest complaints I get in my office is why people can hear others talk to them but not understand the words they are saying. The answer to the overwhelming majority of these questions is high frequency sensorineural hearing loss. As we grow older, humans tend to lose a bit of our hearing. This loss of hearing due to age is called presbycusis .
In the English language, vowels are low frequency sounds that bring power to our speech, but contribute less to understanding. Consonants are more mid and high frequency sounds that bring understanding to our language. It is very common to lose high frequency hearing sensitivity at a greater amount than we lose our low frequency hearing sensitivity.
When someone has a high frequency hearing loss, they can hear low frequency sounds (vowels) louder than other sounds. This allows them to be alerted that someone is speaking to them, but since the high frequency sounds are missing or present at significantly lower levels, they cannot understand what is being said. An excellent example of this situation is the TV game show “Wheel of Fortune”. When all those blank spaces for letters appear on the screen, why do you think the vowels are so cheap? The vowels are cheap because they convey little meaning to the word. It’s only after you start placing some consonants into the spaces that you can figure out what the word is. People with untreated high frequency hearing loss are literally playing “Wheel of Fortune” all day long.
The most effective treatment is hearing aid amplification that is used consistently all day long. The human brain is very powerful but is limited by the sounds that the ears let in. If you have a high frequency hearing loss, your brain is not getting that information and cannot make use of it to understand speech. Hearing aids can bring back those high frequency sounds and our brain will actually re-wire itself to begin using the high frequency sounds again. This “re-wiring” process can take several months to complete. The result is better speech understanding.
If you find yourself asking others for repetition often, or you are turning up the TV/radio louder and louder, it is time for an audiological evaluation. If you or someone else you know is avoiding social situations because of poor hearing, please have them be evaluated by an audiologist.
Hearing aids have come a long way over the years and most are now extremely sophisticated digital devices that perform quite well. Hearing aids make split second decisions on sound processing to deliver the speech signal the most appropriate way to the user. Every hearing loss is different and the hearing aids need to be programmed by a competent professional. It is strongly suggested that you see an audiologist when purchasing hearing aids.
This article was written by Dr. Douglas Kloss, Audiologist at Midwest Audiology Center, LLC. 4818 S. 76th St., Suite 3, Greenfield, WI 53220. 414-281-8300
