About hearing loss
Hearing loss is a reduced ability to hear. It ranges from mild to complete hearing loss.
Many factors can cause hearing loss, including:
- age – hearing loss increases from about half of those aged 60 to 70, to 70% of those aged 70 and over, and 80% of those aged 80 and over
- exposure to loud noise – this is often preventable
- untreated ear disease
- genetics.
Read more about ways to support patients with hearing loss.
Impacts of hearing loss
Poor ear and hearing health is a serious problem that can have profound lifelong consequences. Many ear diseases and conditions can affect ear health, and lead to hearing loss.
Hearing loss can:
- affect a child’s ability to listen, learn and talk
- result in lower school attendance
- affect a person’s ability to get an education and find work
- affect social and emotional wellbeing, including a higher risk of low self-esteem, low confidence, memory loss and depression
- lead to social isolation.
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Managing hearing loss
Hearing loss can make it difficult to communicate. To make it easier:
- make sure hearing aids are turned on
- keep background noise to a minimum
- speak slowly and clearly
- rephrase the sentence when not understood
- communicate in writing
- use a live speech captioning app such as NALScribe.
Read more about way to prevent and manage hearing loss.
Read for more tips for communicating when you have hearing loss and tips for talking to people with hearing loss.
Protecting your hearing
Exposure to loud noise can cause hearing loss. It is often preventable if you take steps to protect your hearing and get regular hearing checks.
Read more about ways to protect your hearing.
Watch this short video for more ideas for protecting your hearing.
Know Your Noise
The Know Your Noise website provides information about noise and how it can affect your hearing health. Find out if the noise at your work or other places is putting you at risk of hearing damage. You can also take a hearing test to check if you have hearing loss.
Tinnitus
Tinnitus refers to sounds such as ringing in the ears which you can hear, but do not come from outside of you. Tinnitus is more common in people with hearing loss but can happen to anyone. Some types of tinnitus can be due to medical causes, so it is important to report tinnitus to your doctor or hearing health professional.
We do not fund any tinnitus-specific programs.
Read more about ways to manage tinnitus.
Find support services
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