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Sensorineural hearing loss - Symptoms
Last reviewed: 06.07.2025
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In patients with sensorineural hearing loss, the first complaint is always about hearing loss in one or both ears, which is often accompanied by subjective noise in the ear (ears). In acute hearing loss, a descending type of audiometric curve is observed in most cases. Quite often, patients show a positive phenomenon of accelerating loudness increase. In unilateral sensorineural hearing loss, the patient loses the ability to generalize sound in space. Bilateral hearing loss leads people to isolation, loss of emotional coloring of speech, and decreased social activity. The combination of sensorineural hearing loss with a disorder in the vestibular system forms a peripheral or central cochleovestibular syndrome.
[ Classification of sensorineural hearing loss
Depending on the duration of the disease, there are sudden, acute and chronic hearing loss. Sudden sensorineural hearing loss develops without warning signs, usually in one ear over several hours during sleep (or is detected immediately after waking up). Acute sensorineural hearing loss develops gradually over several days. Based on a dynamic hearing test, two stages of the disease have been identified in patients with chronic sensorineural hearing loss: stable and progressive. Depending on the course of the disease, sensorineural hearing loss can be reversible, stable or progressive. Depending on the level of damage to the hearing organ, peripheral and central damage are distinguished. In peripheral changes, the damage is localized at the level of the sensory structures of the inner ear. Central auditory dysfunction occurs as a result of damage at the level of the VIII cranial nerve, the pathways in the brainstem, or the cerebral cortex.
Depending on the time of onset, prelingual and postlingual hearing loss are distinguished. Prelingual (pre-speech) hearing loss occurs before speech development. All congenital forms of hearing loss are prelingual, but not all prelingual forms of hearing loss are congenital. Postlingual (post-speech) hearing loss appears after the onset of normal speech.
There are 4 degrees of hearing loss based on the degree of hearing loss. Hearing loss is measured by the degree of increase in sound intensity (dB) corresponding to the hearing threshold. Hearing is considered normal if the hearing threshold of a given individual is within 0-25 dB of the normal hearing threshold.
- I degree (mild) - 26-40 dB;
- P level (moderate) - 41-55 dB;
- III degree (moderately severe) - 56-70 dB;
- IV degree (severe) - 71-90 dB; Deafness - more than 90 dB.