Understand your ear
How Do You Hear?
Hearing starts with the outer ear. When a sound is made, the sound waves, which are just vibrations in the air around us, travel along the ear canal (external auditory canal) and vibrates the eardrum (tympanic membrane). If working properly, the eardrum can detect even the faintest sounds.
The vibrations are then amplified and sent to the inner ear and into the fluid-filled hearing organ, called the cochlea, which instantaneously sends the signal along the auditory nerve. The auditory nerve sends these impulses to hearing centres of the brain, the auditory cortex. This is where the streams of nerve impulses are converted into meaningful sound.

HEARING PROCESS
How Hearing Happens
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The auricle (pinna) is the visible portion of the outer ear. It collects sound waves and channels them into the ear canal (external auditory canal), where the sound is amplified.
Tympanic membrane is also called the eardrum. It separates the outer ear from the middle ear. When sound waves reach the tympanic membrane, they cause it to vibrate.
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External Auditory Canal is a passageway that leads from outside of the head to the eardrum. The canal is approximately 2.5 cm in length and functions to transmit sound from the pinna to the eardrum.
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Semicircular canals are three tiny, fluid-filled tubes in your inner that are part of the vestibular system in the inner ear. The vestibular system is responsible for your sense of balance and equilibrium.
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Cochlea comes from the Greek word for ‘snail’ because of its distinctive coiled shape. The cochlea, which contains many thousands of sensory cells (called ‘hair cells’), is connected to the central hearing system by the auditory nerve. The cochlea is filled with special fluids which are important to the process of hearing.
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Auditory Ossicles consist of stapes, malleus and incus and are the tiniest bones in your body. They transmit sound via a chain reaction of vibrations that connect the eardrum to the inner ear and the cochlea.
Vestibular nerve relays information about body position and acceleration to the brain.
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ABOUT YOUR EAR
What could go wrong?
Hearing loss can occur at any age. Although advancing age or exposure to loud noise are the most common causes of hearing loss, an infection, injury or genetic issues can be among the reasons for hearing loss.

“Can you speak up, I can’t hear you ”
Hearing loss due to aging is the most common cause of hearing loss. As we get older, the daily wear and tear on our hearing systems gradually reduces its effectiveness. You may not realize it is happening until your symptoms become severe, or someone else notices you are having trouble. When your hearing starts to weaken, it becomes more difficult to hear soft voices and high-frequency sounds. Age-related hearing loss can also make it very hard to follow conversations in the presence of background noise, even if parts of the conversation can be heard, but you can’t quite understand what is being said.

Is your music “too loud” for you?
Noise-induced hearing loss is caused by prolonged exposure to loud noise. Certain professions have a higher risk of noise-induced hearing loss in the workplace. This includes (but is not limited to) military personnel, musicians, kindergarten teachers, factory workers and construction workers. Listening to loud music at live concerts and through headphones can also damage your hearing. While noise-induced hearing loss is generally temporary in nature, repeated overexposure to loud noise makes it harder for the ears to recover between events. The noise damages inner ear hair cells, causing hearing loss to deteriorate over time and become permanent.

Illness can harm your hearing too
Hearing loss can be a side effect of certain illnesses and disorders. As an example, hearing loss due to an ear infection is usually temporary. With care from your doctor, hearing can easily recover after the infection in treated. Meniere's disease is an inner-ear condition that can cause vertigo, a specific type of dizziness in which you feel as though you are spinning. It also can cause ringing in your ear (tinnitus), hearing loss that comes and goes, and a feeling of fullness or pressure in your ear. Severe cases of jaundice in newborn babies can also cause hearing loss.

A head injury can damage your hearing
Head trauma can damage inner ear structures causing a temporary or permanent hearing loss. Common examples are perforation of the eardrum, skull injury or severe impact on the head as a result of playing sports, martial arts or an accident as well as changes in air pressure (barotrauma), or if you’re a scuba diver, rapid increase in water pressure can all lead to some form of hearing loss.

Your medication may have some unwanted side effects too.
There are numerous drugs and medications linked to hearing loss, known as ototoxic drugs. These include certain antibiotics, cancer medications, and diuretics pills. Generally, you must take large and prolonged doses of these types of drugs to notice effects of hearing loss. Your doctor will probably keep an eye on your hearing while you take them. However, some resulting hearing loss may be permanent.

Untreated hearing loss is bad for your brain.
If hearing loss is left untreated, auditory pathways in your brain can atrophy because they are not being used. Fortunately, there are options to help you or your loved ones to hear better. Great advances in technology have made solutions for hearing loss even easier. Long gone are the cumbersome devices that drew attention to your condition. The newest hearing aids are almost invisible, comfortable and have the most advanced technology with some truly amazing features. Addressing hearing loss means improving your quality of life.