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Functions of the Ear:

Outer Ear

• To protect the ear
• To collect sound
• To modify sound
• To provide some form of sound enhancement

Middle Ear

• To change air vibration of sound into mechanical energy (movement of ossicles)

Inner Ear

• The movement of the ossicles in the middle ear cause movement of the fluid, which causes the hair cell to bend resulting in the stimulation of the auditory nerve.

Types of Heaing Loss:

Conductive Hearing Loss

Occurs as a result of damage to the outer or middle ear

Sensorineural

Occurs as a result of damage to the inner ear

Retrocochlear

Occurs as a result of damage to the auditory nerve

Degrees of Hearing Loss:

Degree of hearing loss	Degree of hearing loss described in decibels (dB)	Difficulties experienced
Minimal	11 - 25 dB	Few difficulties
Mild	26 - 40 dB	Difficluty hearing soft speech
Moderate	41 - 55 dB	Cannot hear soft speech at conversational level
Moderately Severe	56 - 70 dB	Cannot hear soft speech at conversational level
Severe	71 - 90 dB	Cannot hear at conversational level even when loud
Profound	91 dB and over	Cannot hear loud speech or loud sounds

The level at which speech sounds and environmental noises occur

Hearing Aid information:

A hearing aid is an electronic assistive device which is most often worn behind or in the ear. Due to recent developments in digital technology and advanced electronic design, today hearing aids can be so small that they are virtually invisible in the ear canal. Despite their small size there is no compromise to quality of sound.

Although a hearing aid may not provide its wearer with completely normal hearing, it should be able to provide considerable benefit in overcoming the effects of a hearing loss.

The different types of Hearing Aids:

There are 3 main types of hearing aids:

1) Behind- the-ear

2) In-the-ear

3) Completely-in-canal