What should elderly people do if they have hearing loss? Professional diagnosis and treatment are essential

For the elderly, not being able to hear or understand what others are saying in daily communication will not only lead to communication barriers, but also cause weakness, loneliness, and mental and psychological problems. As the physical functions of the elderly decline, hearing loss is often one of the most common and easiest to detect problems. If the elderly have already suffered hearing loss, how can we effectively intervene and treat it through medical means? Let's follow the experts to look at the examination, diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss.

What tests do elderly people need to do if they have hearing problems?

Generally speaking, there are three manifestations of hearing loss in the elderly: first, they cannot understand what is being said. They can only hear the sounds but not understand the meaning. This is the most common and prominent situation. Second, it is difficult to hear or cannot hear at all. This often brings many obstacles to the daily life of the elderly. Third, due to hearing loss, cognitive functions and even balance functions are affected. For example, the elderly are prone to falling for no reason. This may be due to a decrease in balance ability caused by a decrease in vestibular function.

Therefore, when an elderly person with hearing problems comes to the hospital for treatment, the doctor will first conduct a routine hearing test to determine the elderly person's hearing level; then check the elderly person's communication ability, that is, through a speech recognition ability test to determine whether the elderly person can hear and understand normal communication within a certain threshold; finally, conduct a series of cognitive function tests, such as using an on-site scale to judge the elderly person's cognitive function.

How is the severity of hearing loss in the elderly graded?

According to the average hearing loss, hearing loss is divided into five levels: normal (average hearing loss less than or equal to 25 decibels), mild hearing loss (average hearing loss between 26-40 decibels), moderate hearing loss (average hearing loss between 41-60 decibels), severe hearing loss (average hearing loss between 61-80 decibels), and profound hearing loss (average hearing loss greater than or equal to 81 decibels).

When an elderly person visits a doctor, the doctor will first estimate the extent of their hearing loss through simple verbal communication, then use a pure tone audiometry test to accurately calculate their average hearing loss, and finally determine their level of hearing loss.

What are the common treatments for hearing loss in the elderly?

Some elderly people may have acute or subacute diseases, such as deafness caused by ear diseases such as exudative otitis media and secretory otitis media. If the hearing loss is caused by this reason, it can be improved through medication or surgery.

In addition, some elderly people's hearing loss is due to body aging or lifelong accumulated hearing loss, which is often ultimately irreversible. In this case, hearing compensation or hearing reconstruction can be used to make up for the hearing loss. The most common method is to wear hearing aids, cochlear implants, etc.

As for the safety of cochlear implants, the elderly do not need to worry too much. During the treatment, the doctor will check the patient's whole body organs, including heart, respiratory, liver and kidney functions. In addition, according to existing domestic and foreign experience, the tolerance of cochlear implants by the elderly over 60 years old is not much different from that of young and middle-aged people.

Therefore, when the elderly have hearing loss, they should go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment in time, so as to accurately determine whether treatment is needed and what kind of treatment is needed. In addition, the current hearing compensation and reconstruction technology is also mature. Even if the elderly have irreversible hearing loss, timely and effective medical treatment can bring them laughter and the chirping of birds and insects.

Expert: Yin Shankai, President of the Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University