40 Fun Facts About Hearing Loss

Which composer, almost completely deaf by 1824, had to be turned around to see the audience applaud his Ninth Symphony?

Beethoven was still beating time several bars behind when contralto Caroline Unger gently turned him to face the cheering hall. The musicians had been told beforehand to ignore him.

Which hearing condition does William Shatner link to a pyrotechnic accident while filming a 1967 Star Trek episode?

Tinnitus eased for Shatner after habituation therapy, in which an earpiece of low-level white noise helped his brain push the sound into the background.

Which dog breed is prone to inherited deafness, with a US study finding about a quarter deaf in one or both ears?

The Dalmatian owes its deafness to missing pigment cells in the inner ear, the same fault seen in other largely white or piebald animals. Dogs deaf in one ear cannot tell where a sound comes from.

Hearing loss in midlife ranks among the largest modifiable risk factors for which condition of later life?

Dementia may become more likely because straining to hear adds to the brain's workload, and because hearing loss can lead to social isolation, another known risk factor.

Which tiny structures of the inner ear, damaged by loud noise, can regrow in birds and fish but not in humans?

Hair cells turn sound into nerve signals, and because mammals cannot replace them the loss is permanent. Researchers hope gene and stem-cell therapies may one day regrow them.

Which rock guitarist blames some of his hearing loss on Keith Moon's drum kit exploding on a 1967 TV show?

Pete Townshend later gave the first funding for H.E.A.R., a non-profit advocacy group whose name stands for Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers.

Which US president boosted hearing aid sales by going public about his own custom-made device during his first term?

Ronald Reagan wore the small amplifying device first in his right ear and later in his left as well, and spoke openly about it in 1983.

Which natural substance can cause temporary hearing loss when cotton swabs push it deeper into the ear canal?

Earwax blockages are easily treated, and hearing usually returns completely once the plug is out. Doctors know the substance as cerumen.

Which viral infection, also called German measles, can leave a baby deaf if the mother catches it during pregnancy?

Rubella infected an estimated 12.5 million Americans in the epidemic of 1964–65, before vaccination made it preventable. Babies who survive it in the womb may also be born with cataracts or heart defects.

Which American author, deaf and blind after an illness at 19 months old, learned language from teacher Anne Sullivan?

Helen Keller went on to attend Radcliffe College and became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a college diploma.

Which inventor, whose mother and wife were both deaf, taught deaf pupils in Boston before his famous 1876 patent?

Bell learned a finger language as a boy so that he could sit beside his mother and tap out the family's conversations as her hearing faded.

Which Beach Boys songwriter made Pet Sounds despite significantly reduced hearing in his right ear since childhood?

Brian Wilson's problem was spotted at a choir recital when he was 11 and diagnosed as a nerve impingement. Surgery in the late 1960s failed to restore the hearing.

Which actress, deaf from 18 months old, won the Best Actress Oscar for a 1986 film debut opposite William Hurt?

Marlee Matlin was 21 when she won for Children of a Lesser God, making her the youngest Best Actress winner as well as the first deaf performer to take an Oscar.

Which film stars Riz Ahmed as a drummer who loses his hearing and joins a rural shelter for deaf recovering addicts?

Sound of Metal won Oscars for Best Sound and Best Film Editing. Its hero sells his instruments and his RV to pay for an operation on his ears.

Which device, pioneered by William House and Graeme Clark, stimulates the hearing nerve directly with electricity?

The cochlear implant has met its strongest objections from within the deaf community, where many people's first language is a sign language.

Which funnel-shaped hearing device did Frederick Rein's London firm begin making commercially in 1800?

The ear trumpet simply gathered sound and steered it into the canal. Rein also built a special listening chair for Portugal's King John VI and concealed hearing aids inside headbands.

Domestic cats with a white coat and which eye colour are the most likely to be born deaf?

Blue eyes and deafness travel together in white cats. In an odd-eyed cat with only one such eye, the deafness is more likely to affect the ear on that same side.

Which US agency issued the 2022 rule that lets shoppers buy hearing aids over the counter without a prescription?

The FDA rule followed a 2017 act of Congress and covers aids for mild to moderate hearing loss, sold in stores or online with no medical exam and adjusted by the wearer.

Which tool, invented in 1711 by court musician John Shore, do doctors use in the Rinne and Weber hearing tests?

The tuning fork is set ringing and held on the bone behind the ear, then beside the canal. Hearing it for longer through bone points to a blockage in the outer or middle ear.

Which type of hearing loss occurs when sound is blocked in the outer or middle ear, as by fluid behind the eardrum?

Conductive loss in the middle ear is most often caused by a build-up of fluid, especially in children. A later onset can follow an ear infection, an injury or a respiratory infection.

Which medical term, built from Greek words for old and hearing, names the gradual hearing loss that comes with ageing?

Presbycusis is the most common cause of hearing loss, affecting about one person in three by the age of 65 and one in two by 75, and men more than women.

Which kind of sound does age-related hearing loss usually take first, blurring consonants such as s and f?

High-pitched sounds go first, which is why speech starts to seem mumbled. Even young adults may already have lost the ability to hear very high tones above 15 or 16 kHz.

Which word describes drugs, such as the antibiotic gentamicin and the cancer drug cisplatin, that can damage hearing?

Ototoxic effects are not always permanent: high doses of aspirin can bring on ringing and hearing loss in both ears that typically fade once the drug is stopped.

Which inner-ear disorder causes attacks of vertigo and ringing with hearing loss that comes and goes?

Ménière's disease is named after French physician Prosper Menière, who in 1861 was the first to trace its scattered symptoms to a single disorder of the organ of balance and hearing.

Which benign tumour on a nerve between the inner ear and the brain left actor Mark Ruffalo deaf in his left ear?

Acoustic neuroma surgery also left Ruffalo with a partly paralysed face for about a year. The tumours grow slowly, and the first sign is usually gradual hearing loss on one side.

Which nickname is given to otitis media with effusion, a build-up of fluid in the middle ear common in children?

Glue ear usually starts with a Eustachian tube that is not working properly, and the trapped fluid dulls hearing by damping the vibrations of the tiny middle-ear bones.

Which infection of the membranes around the brain and spinal cord can leave survivors with deafness or epilepsy?

Meningitis can inflame the cranial nerves that serve hearing, though some of the resulting loss may be reversible. Vaccines now prevent several forms of the infection.

Which chart of a hearing test includes a region nicknamed the speech banana, where the sounds of spoken language fall?

An audiogram plots the quietest tones a person can detect at each pitch. Loss inside the banana-shaped zone worries clinicians most, because that is where the phonemes of speech sit.

Which element, able to bond directly with living bone, forms the skull fixture of a bone-anchored hearing aid?

Titanium fuses with bone, a bond Professor Brånemark found in animal studies and named osseointegration. The fixture passes sound vibrations through the skull to the inner ear.

Which electronic component appeared in the 1952 Sonotone 1010 hearing aid, two years before the first radio to use it?

The transistor needed far less battery power than the hot, fragile vacuum tubes it replaced. The first commercial radio built around it, the Regency TR-1, followed in 1954.

Which herpes-family virus, passed from mother to unborn baby, is the top non-genetic cause of childhood hearing loss?

Cytomegalovirus accounts for about a fifth of sensorineural hearing loss in children, and the loss can set in at any point in childhood, most often within the first ten years.

Which genetic condition, the leading cause of deafblindness, pairs hearing loss with retinitis pigmentosa?

Usher syndrome is named after Scottish eye doctor Charles Usher, who studied how it passes through families in 1914. Night blindness is usually the first sign of the vision loss.

Which condition makes abnormal bone growth lock the stapes in place, and is often treated by replacing that tiny bone?

Otosclerosis is something of a misnomer, because the diseased bone is spongy before it hardens. Surgeons can swap the stuck stapes for a tiny piston-like prosthesis.

Which class of drugs is the main treatment for sudden deafness in one ear, which doctors treat as a medical emergency?

Steroids such as prednisolone, taken by mouth, are the usual first step. In a 2024 study of nearly 500 patients, 46 percent recovered their hearing completely.

Which New England island once had so much hereditary deafness that hearing residents routinely used its sign language?

Martha's Vineyard had hereditary deafness by 1714, and in the town of Chilmark about one person in 25 was deaf. Because neighbours signed too, deafness was no barrier to public life.

Which condition, named from Greek words for hate and sound, makes noises such as chewing provoke anger or disgust?

Misophonia got its name in 2001, coined with the help of a classical scholar. Sufferers usually know their reaction is out of proportion, which can add shame and isolation.

Surfer's ear, in which bony lumps narrow the ear canal and muffle hearing, is caused by repeated exposure to what?

Cold water and wind irritate the bone around the canal until it throws up lumps of new growth. Kayakers, sailors and divers develop the condition as well.

Which tiny part inside many hearing aids picks up the magnetic signal from an induction loop or a phone's speaker?

A telecoil is a small loop of wire, and its T mode usually works better than listening through the aid's microphone, because it takes the signal straight from the magnetic field.

Which destructive skin growth in the middle ear can erode the three tiny hearing bones and even reach the brain?

A cholesteatoma is not cancerous, yet enzymes it produces can eat through the thin bone between the ear and the brain. Actor Bradley Cooper was born with one and needed several operations.

Which Washington, D.C. university designs all of its programs and services for deaf and hard of hearing students?

Gallaudet University grants college degrees under an act that President Lincoln signed in April 1864. It was the world's first school for the advanced education of deaf students.