What may go wrong?
When things go wrong with the hearing pathway, the obvious manifestation is a decreased responsiveness to sound, which we in laymen terms call deafness. There are two kinds of deafness:

1. Conductive deafness: When sounds cannot freely pass through the outer and middle ear.

2. Sensorineural deafness: When deafness is due to a problem in the cochlea or the hearing nerve, or both. Some people may also call this type of deafness as Nerve deafness, Sensory, Cochlear or Inner ear deafness.

Conductive deafness:
Otitis Media: This is an infection or inflammation of the middle ear. When this happens the middle ear may get filled with thick fluid, and the condition is called glue ear. The pressure changes in the ear need to be monitored by Tympanometry.

Perforated eardrums: can be caused by ear trauma, poking things in your ear, head injuries, explosions or by untreated otitis media. They can heal by themselves in early stages but sometimes become permanent causing repeated infections and ear discharge.

Otosclerosis: this affects more women than men and can run in families. It is more common around the age of thirty and is caused by a bony overgrowth of the stapes because of which sound vibrations cannot pass freely through the middle ear to the cochlea.

Damaged ossicles: the tiny bones in the middle ear can have serious infections or head injuries could damage them. Sometimes babies are born with bones that are improperly formed.

Sensorineural deafness:
Most common cause of this is the damage to tiny hair cells in the cochlea. These hair cells cannot be replaced and therefore the loss is permanent. The damage can happen:

1. Due to old age. This is a natural process and is called presbyacusis.

2. Long term exposure to loud noise, example in factory workers, or people who listen to loud music all the time.

3. An affect of certain strong drugs.

4. Serious head injury.

5. Disease such as mumps or meningitis.

6. Infection to the pregnant mother, where the baby can be affected.

7. Genetic