New York, Apr 21 (PTI) Traditional clinical hearing tests often fail to diagnose patients with a common form of inner ear damage that might otherwise be detected by more challenging behavioural tests, a new study has found. This type of "hidden hearing loss" paradoxically presents itself as essentially normal hearing in the clinic, where audiograms - the gold-standard for measuring hearing thresholds - are typically conducted in a quiet room. The reason some forms of hearing loss may go unrecognised in the clinic is that hearing involves a complex partnership between the ear and the brain. "But people with this type of damage have difficulty hearing in certain situations, like hearing speech in a noisy room. The perceptual consequences include apparently normal hearing for tests administered in quiet settings, but adding background noise often results in deficits in detecting and recognising sounds.

Source: India Today April 21, 2017 11:37 UTC