• There are three types of hearing loss: conductive, sensorineural, and mixed hearing loss.

• Conductive hearing loss occurs from loss of sound sensitivity resulting from abnormalities of the middle and/or outer ear. The auditory nerve's function is still normal, the sound is just impeded from getting to the inner ear. This type of loss is common in children with ear infections; once the infection is cleared up, the hearing is restored.

• Sensorineural hearing loss results from abnormalities of the inner ear and/or nerve paths to the brain. The auditory cells and nerve are permanently damaged. This is the type of hearing loss often referred to as "nerve deafness".

• Mixed hearing losses are those that have symptoms of both conductive and sensorineural hearing losses.

• Others complain you have the television too loud
• You have problems hearing birds or wind
• You have difficulty hearing female voices or children
• You have difficulty hearing in groups
• You find yourself confusing words or making silly mistakes misunderstanding conversations
• Other people, or family members, think you have a hearing loss

• Noise exposure (military, hunting, music, industrial, racing, power saws, lawn mowers)
• Heredity
• Certain chemotherapy and radiation treatments
• Certain heavy-duty antibiotics
• Head trauma
• Wax
• Ear infections
• Viral infections

Your ability to hear is as unique as your fingerprint. No two people have exactly the same hearing impairment.

Hearing loss is classified by several factors: degree, understanding ability, location of loss along the speech frequencies, and type of loss.

Degree: Degree refers to the amount/severity of the hearing loss. Hearing loss is ranked mild (slight difficulty hearing in daily environment), moderate (difficult to hear most sounds in your daily environment), severe (extremely difficult to hear all sounds in daily life) or profound (deaf).

Understanding Ability: Hearing and understanding are different. You may be able to hear sounds but not understand what is being said. Sometimes understanding ability is impaired as a result of a hearing loss. This is usually measured by a percentage of your understanding random words.

Location of Loss Along Speech Frequencies: Usually hearing loss does not affect all speech frequencies the same. For example, loud sounds damage hearing ability in the high frequencies. This creates a problem hearing sounds that are high in pitch (i.e.. female or children's voices, birds, consonant sounds like "s" and "t"). Some other hearing losses, from head trauma or ear infections, can affect the low pitches (i.e.. male voices, loudness, vowel sounds).

Type of Loss: There are three types of hearing loss.
Conductive Hearing Loss: Conductive hearing loss results from a problem with the conduction of sound from the outer ear (part that you see) to the inner ear (where the nerve is located). This can result from wax buildup, ear infections, trauma to the ear, or any other problem with the eardrum or bones that conduct sound through the middle ear. Those with this type of loss have a problem with volume rather than understanding ability.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss: Sensorineural hearing loss involves some sort of deterioration of the inner ear or the hearing nerve. The aging process, noise-exposure, some cancer treatments, illness, and other degenerative processes could cause this loss. This type of hearing loss sometimes impairs understanding ability and causes those with the loss to be sensitive to loud sounds.

Mixed Hearing Loss: Mixed hearing losses contain some conductive elements and some sensorineural elements.