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Article: Sound advice: about age-related hearing loss.(Cover story)
- Article from:
- FDA Consumer
- Article date:
- May 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 U.S. Government Printing Office. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The popular notion that older people are "hard of hearing" is often true. Hearing loss occurs gradually in most people as they age.
According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of Health, about 1 out of every 3 U.S. adults between the ages of 65 and 75 has a hearing loss. The NIDCD further estimates that about half of people 75 and older have some degree of hearing loss.
"We are born with a set of sensory cells, and at about age 18 we slowly start to lose them," says Hinrich Staecker, M.D., Ph.D., director of the otology and neurotology program at the University of Maryland ...