Do you find that you have difficulty hearing in one-to-one or group situation? Do you find that although you can hear what is being said you can't understand it? Are you constantly turning up the television or radio? Or do you find that you have to turn your head to try and hear the conversation more clearly?

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms then your are certainly suffering from some form of hearing loss which can be improved dramatically by wearing hearing aids.

The most common form of hearing loss is caused by our aging process, where the hair cells in the cochlea become damaged or unresponsive, but there are many other reasons including illness, heredity, long term exposure to noise and injuries.

The severity of your hearing loss can also be determined as either being mild (difficulty in hearing soft sounds), moderate (difficulty in hearing most sounds), severe (difficulty in hearing all sounds) or profound (extreme difficulty in hearing all sounds)

But whatever you hearing loss is it can be categorised as one of the following types:-

Conductive loss

This is caused by an obstruction situated in the outer or middle ear, or sustained injury/damage to the eardrum, bones or membranes that pass the sound from the middle to the inner ear. In these cases the cochlea and auditory nerve are functioning normally but the sound is prevented from reaching them properly.

Sensori-neural loss

This is by far the most common form of hearing loss and relates to the inner ear being unable to process the sound as it normally should. This occurs mainly when the hair cells become damaged due to the natural aging process or exposure to loud noises, but can also be caused by the deterioration of the nerves connecting the brain to the inner ear.

Mixed loss

A combination of both Conductive and Sensori-neural loss.

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