Which of the following is not a cause of sensorineural hearing loss?
Correct Answer A:
Hearing loss also may be caused by damage to the sensory structures (hair cells) of the inner ear, auditory nerve, or auditory nerve pathways in the brain (sensorineural hearing loss). These sensory structures may be damaged by drugs, infections, tumors, and skull injuries.
Causes of sensorineural hearing loss include aging, brain tumors, certain drugs (ototoxicity), presbycusis, loud noise, Meniere's disease and sudden pressure changes from flying, diving, and strenuous exercise.
You see a 90-year-old male with a five-year history of progressive hearing loss.
The most common type of hearing loss at this age affects:
In the geriatric population, presbycusis is the most common cause of hearing loss. Patients typically have the most difficulty hearing higher frequencies such as consonants. Lower-frequency sounds such as vowels are preserved.
A 47-year-old female presents with progressive difficulty hearing. She is employed as an office worker, has no significant past medical history, and takes no medications. Physical examination shows no gross abnormalities of her outer ears. The external ear canals are free of cerumen, and the tympanic membranes move well to insufflation. Weber’s test and the Rinne test have results that are compatible with a conductive hearing loss.
Which one of the following is the most likely cause of this patient’s hearing loss?
Correct Answer C:
Otosclerosis typically presents between the third and fifth decades, and is more common in women. The chief feature of otosclerosis is a progressive conductive hearing loss. Occasionally, when lesions impinge on the stapes footplate, a sensorineural loss may occur. All of the other choices are exclusively sensorineural in character. Meniere’s disease also causes fluctuating hearing loss. Noise-induced hearing loss frequently and characteristically is accompanied by tinnitus. Perilymphatic fistula is associated with sudden unilateral hearing loss with tinnitus and vertigo. Acoustic neuroma is associated with tinnitus and gradual hearing impairment.
Which one of the following historical or audiographic findings in an elderly person would indicate that hearing loss is due to something other than presbycusis?
Presbycusis, the hearing loss associated with aging, is gradual in onset, bilateral, symmetric, and sensorineural.
Conductive hearing loss is a symptom of:
Conductive hearing loss is reduced conduction (transmission) of the vibrations of sound waves to the inner ear. It generally results from a problem with the outer or middle ear. Typical causes of conductive hearing loss among adults are blockage of the ear canal by earwax, stiffening of the ossicles by scar tissue that results from middle ear infection or surgery, and fluid accumulation in the middle ear due to a blocked eustachian tube.
Causes of conductive hearing loss include cholesteatoma (noncancerous tumor in the middle ear caused by an ear infection), chronic middle ear fluid (otitis media with effusion), middle ear infection (otitis media), obstruction of external ear canal (for example, with wax, a tumor, or pus from an infection), otosclerosis (bony overgrowth of the ossicles) and perforated eardrum.
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