56 Age-related Hearing Loss

Hearing tests are performed over a range of frequencies, usually from 250 to 8000 Hz, and can be displayed graphically in an audiogram (shown below). Audiograms are measured in adults by asking the patient to push a button to indicate when they hear a sound by your right ear or left ear while wearing headphones. The hearing threshold is measured in dB relative to the normal threshold, so that normal hearing registers as 0 dB at all frequencies.

The most common form of hearing loss comes with age and is called presbycusis—literally “elder ear.” Such loss is increasingly severe at higher frequencies and interferes with music appreciation and speech recognition. While race and gender differences do appear (e.g., Helzner, 2005) they are minor compared to the overall expectation that our hearing thresholds will be elevated at least 20dB at all frequencies, and by more than 40dB at high frequencies, by the time we are 80.