We don’t really know why, but hearing is the poor relation of our five senses. We never accept seeing badly, we can’t stand not smelling or tasting anymore… But there are 4 million deaf people in our country. National Hearing Day is today to remind us of this and to insist on the solutions that exist but are not always applied.
The hearing-impaired, not just the tough old folks as we affectionately say, but a million and a half under 55 and 400,000 under 18. Now, to hear is to be able to communicate. We can therefore conclude that almost 10% of the population no longer communicate.
The earlier the treatment, the more effective the solution will be. It is therefore in children that screening must begin. A family history, of course, but a birth weight of less than 2 kg or an infection of the fetus during pregnancy, should suggest this. Then, later, too calm sleep, the delay in the appearance of the first words after 17 months, inattention to everything that escapes his visual field, must cause an exploration of the ear. Because from the origin of the problem will flow the solution.
The very complex mechanism of hearing
The sound must first enter our body. For this there are ears, receivers and amplifier pipes. They can become clogged in the event of an obstacle or otitis. The sound then hits the eardrum, which plays the role of drum skin, to be transmitted to the three smallest bones of our body, the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup, whose role is to transform the acoustic wave in vibration wave. In case of destruction or malformation of these bones, surgery can work miracles. The sound then reaches a snail-shaped structure, the cochlea, lined with 15,000 cells that will transform the vibration into electricity. All that remains is for the auditory nerve to carry this nerve impulse to the brain. These cells are in 4 rows. The deeper transmits the bass, and the closer you get to the outside, the more the transmitted sounds come from the treble.
Presbycusis
It is to the ear what presbyopia is to the eye. A symptom related to age… The outer layer of the cochlea being damaged first, it will be understood that presbycusis, the aging of our ear, first concerns high-pitched sounds.
One might think that as soon as the nerve is affected, medicine is powerless. This is not the case – unlike the nerve of sight – and the specialists are affirmative when they claim that the majority of deafness today is perfectly amenable to improvement.
It is important to talk about it and to hear these arguments!
Doctor Jean-Francois Lemoine
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