Other names: surditas

Hearing impairment may be congenital (before the development of speech) or which may arise in the course of life (deafness) due to injuries, inflammations and tumors in the ear, certain medications (antibiotics and cytostatics) or due to overloading of the auditory apparatus eg. During lengthy noisy work environment free protective gear or explosion that could cause a rupture of the tympanic membrane (due to pressure changes).

Hearing impairment may be only partial – ie. Deafness (nahluchlost) often seen as well as older people, which can compensate for certain aids – hearing aids, or complete, and in this case we are talking about deafness when hearing usually do not help.

The deaf-born child is born as a result of a genetic defect or some maternal morbidity (eg. Rubella, measles, metabolic disorders), which it underwent in the early months of pregnancy. Therefore, care must be taken to prevent – rubella vaccination (if a woman has few antibodies or not a child vaccinated and rubella have never not gone, it is appropriate in the case of a planned pregnancy be vaccinated before pregnancy, during pregnancy can no longer rubella vaccination), measles and complete the prescribed examinations of pregnant women (screening and prenatal diagnosis).

Children may suffer hearing defect also during a difficult birth, head injuries or meningitis. Defect resulting from the development of speech has always worse consequences than the defect has been spilled or later in adulthood, so caution should be exercised and care. Do not underestimate even in childhood so frequent middle ear infections!

Hearing defect can be categorized according to their place of origin to transfer and perceptive.Cause transfer defect is located in the outer or middle ear more often (drum, transfer bones), which is disturbed by converting sound vibrations to the cochlea. The patient usually hears less, but the speech understands. These defects can usually be very well compensated Amplified by using modern electronic hearing aids. It never was therefore no complete deafness, but mild or moderate hearing loss intense.

Perceptual defects consist in damage to the inner ear or the auditory pathways storeys high and is thus distorted perception of sound. The patient hears a lot, but the sounds do not understand. This disorder is more serious (moderately severe hearing loss to complete deafness) and can not be compensated for sound amplification (eg. If a sick spoke louder). Sometimes those mechanisms combine and defects are mixed.

Therapy

Deafness is possible to try to heal rehabilitation in specialized centers. For children and adults it is possible in some cases to implant cochlear implant.

The prerequisite of treatment is preserved functional auditory nerve passable snail and a fine must be the entire auditory pathway to the brain centers for processing auditory perception.