
Health Dictionary
Reliable, easy-to-read patient information on common medical conditions β written in plain language, free of jargon, and grounded in current evidence. Browse the most frequent diagnoses, understand what they mean for everyday life, and learn which steps and questions help you have a focused conversation with your doctor.
Hearing impairment natural history, complications and prognosis
Introduction
Overview
Overview
Different factors contribute to prognosis of hearing loss and psychological complications associated with deafness are a big concern for physicians.
Natural History, Complications and Prognosis
Natural History, Complications and Prognosis
Natural History
65% of patients with sudden idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss recover completely within 14 days, independent of any type of medical or surgical treatment. There is a fundamental difference in the behavior of apical and basal cochlea losses recovery and hearing recovery is always better at low than at high frequencies.
Complications
Age-related hearing loss has been associated with[1][2]
- Worse quality of life
- Depression
- Social isolation
- Functional decline
- Fall risk
- Increased hospitalization
- Increase Health care use
- Accelerated Cognitive decline
- Dementia
Prognosis
The prognosis for hearing recovery for idiopathic SSNHL depends on a variety of things including the severity of hearing loss, the shape of the audiogram, age of onset, presence of vertigo, and presence or absence of other risk factors.[3][4]
Prognosis can be predicted according to the slope of the audiogram taken at the start of hearing difficulty (low-frequency losses do better than high-frequency losses), Inflammatory markers, erythrocyte sedimentation rates, hearing at 8 kHz, in some cases, it depends on speech discrimination scores and spatial disorientation symptoms.[5]
References
References
- β Nieman CL, Oh ES (2020). “Hearing Loss”. Ann Intern Med. 173 (11): ITC81βITC96. doi:10.7326/AITC202012010. PMIDΒ 33253610 Check
|pmid=value (help). - β Lin FR, Yaffe K, Xia J, Xue QL, Harris TB, Purchase-Helzner E; et al. (2013). “Hearing loss and cognitive decline in older adults”. JAMA Intern Med. 173 (4): 293β9. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.1868. PMCΒ 3869227. PMIDΒ 23337978. Review in: Evid Based Nurs. 2014 Apr;17(2):60-1
- β Kuhn M, Heman-Ackah SE, Shaikh JA, Roehm PC (2011). “Sudden sensorineural hearing loss: a review of diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis”. Trends Amplif. 15 (3): 91β105. doi:10.1177/1084713811408349. PMCΒ 4040829. PMIDΒ 21606048.
- β Huafeng Y, Hongqin W, Wenna Z, Yuan L, Peng X (2019). “Clinical characteristics and prognosis of elderly patients with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss”. Acta Otolaryngol. 139 (10): 866β869. doi:10.1080/00016489.2019.1641218. PMIDΒ 31452421.
- β Mattox DE, Simmons FB (1977). “Natural history of sudden sensorineural hearing loss”. Ann Otol Rhinol Laryngol. 86 (4 Pt 1): 463β80. doi:10.1177/000348947708600406. PMIDΒ 889223.
