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Spotlight: Hearing & Balance in the News
July 2025
Your ability to hear is critical to how you understand the world around you, yet sometimes it can be hard to tell when something is awry. Read more.
Hearing Aid Associates
Millsboro, Deleware
September 2025
Hearing Loss Linked to Lower Income in Young Adults
Hearing loss, as well as tinnitus, has been correlated with socioeconomic factors such as reduced income and unemployment.
American Academy of Audiology
Reston, Virginia
July 2025
Can My Hearing Affect My Balance?
Study confirms that the balance system is impacted by the amount of sound the brain receives, as much as it is by the sensitive balance system located in the inner-ear.. Read more.
London Hearing UK
London, United Kingdom
Seven Signs that You May Need Your Hearing Tested
Hearing Aid Associates | Millsboro, Delaware
Posted here July 2025
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1. You Turn Up the Volume
One of the first clues to hearing trouble is noticing that you crank up the volume on televisions, stereos, phones and other devices. If you keep the volume in the upper third of its capacity, or if your friends and family comment on how loud you keep volume levels, that’s a signal to have your hearing tested. Making noises louder is an easy, almost unconscious way to compensate for sounds that you are having trouble hearing. Paying attention to how high you have volume levels set can give you a simple indicator of hearing difficulties that need attention.
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2. You Ask People to Repeat Themselves
There’s no shame in needing to have things repeated, but if you find yourself asking people to repeat their words or speak louder, it is worth getting a hearing test. Often with hearing loss, you will be able to hear words, but the words will sound muffled or unclear. This can lead to the perception that your hearing is fine, but the world is mumbling, when in fact the opposite may be true. Keep tabs on how often you need things to be repeated and if it happens frequently, schedule a hearing exam to check for possible issues.
3. There’s a Ringing in Your Ears
The condition of ringing in the ears is called tinnitus and it can sound tonal, like a ring or frequency, or it can sound more like a static buzz or other disruptive sound. Tinnitus occurs after exposure to loud noises and is caused when there’s hearing damage to the ear. Persistent tinnitus can be distracting or aggravating and can occur continually after initial damage is done. A hearing test can check for hearing loss that often accompanies tinnitus and it can help you access programs and strategies for tinnitus relief.
4. You Have Trouble Understanding Children’s Voices
Some of the first signs of typical hearing loss are losing the highest and lowest frequencies of our hearing range. This can make hearing high-pitched voices, like the voices of children, difficult. If you observe that you can’t understand children when they speak, recognize that it might be related to hearing loss of high frequencies.
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5. You Have a Problem Following Conversations
With hearing impairment, following conversations with many participants or in noisy social situations can be daunting. Hearing trouble can cause both difficulty in comprehending voices and trouble in locating them. Noisy environments also contribute to sonic confusion and can become hard to navigate if you have hearing difficulties. If you find yourself avoiding social situations because you have trouble interpreting them, it is a sure signal that you should have your hearing checked. Hearing loss that goes untreated can wreak havoc on people’s sense of connection to others and their ability to effectively communicate.
6. You Experience Vertigo
Vertigo is a feeling of dizziness and disorientation. Vertigo is often brought on by the extreme perspective you see at great heights, but if you experience vertigo sensations on flat land, you’ll want to have your ears checked out. A big part of our sense of balance is determined by fluid in our inner ear and the inner ear is also where the delicate hair cells that perceive sound are located. Our inner ear links our hearing and balance and noticing something wrong with either is cause for concern.
7. You Can’t Tell Where Sounds Are Coming From
Being able to locate the source of a sound is a key component to how we interpret it. The way we can position sounds is based on the subtle time delay between when each ear perceives the sound. Our brain instinctively does the triangulation based on that delay and gives us an accurate picture of where noises originate from in our environment. However, if one of our ears can’t detect the noise, our brain can’t position the sound, and it can make even common noises seem weird or disembodied. If you can hear sounds, but have trouble placing where they are coming from it may be a sign that one ear is having issues.
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For more information, follow this link to the parent site.
Hearing Loss Linked to Lower Income in Young Adults
American Academy of Audiology | Reston, Virginia
Posted here September 2025
Published September 3, 2025
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Jacobs et al. (2025) evaluated differences in employment and income among young adults with hearing loss, tinnitus, or both.
Data for this study came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (ADD Health). ADD Health conducted in-home interviews of children and adolescents ages 12 to 43 years between 1994-2018. The authors analyzed data from respondents with self-reported hearing trouble and determined the degree to which they were bothered by ringing, roaring, or buzzing in their ears.
Results of the data analysis of the young adults, who were initially identified when they were in grades 7–12, and are now ages 22–43, demonstrated that hearing loss has a detrimental effect on income, beginning in young adulthood. Young adults who are minorities and have hearing loss earn substantially less than their White counterparts. The study also showed that the presence of tinnitus was not associated with employment likelihood or potential earnings. Tinnitus was, however, more prevalent among young adults than has been reported.
It is as important for younger patients to be tested and treated appropriately for hearing loss as it is for older patients.
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Learn more here.
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Can My Hearing Affect My Balance?
London Hearing | London, United Kingdom
Posted here July 2025
Published November 4, 2020
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Ear problems can cause more difficulties for an individual than just reduced hearing capacity. They can also impact on how you move, walk, stand and balance. Your ears are not just there to help you hear. In fact, they work in conjunction with a range of different systems in your body. If your balance is working fine, you will probably not have any difficulty remaining upright, walking and understanding where you are in relation to other objects in your vicinity. It’s commonly presumed that balance is determined by our eyes and our brain. While visual input plays a large part in keeping us upright and aware of our surroundings, balance is, in fact, a very complex phenomenon. It draws on lots of different inputs from the outside world, and our ears play a crucial role.
Balance problems often start in your ears
Many balance problems that people can experience begin in the ears. Ear balance disorders can make you feel wobbly and unsteady, almost as if you’re constantly moving. These symptoms can impact on your ability to stand and walk. In some instances, they can even make it difficult to sit-up. It’s clear that ear balance problems can be incredibly distressing, but what exactly is the role of ears in helping you to maintain your balance?
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How do we keep our balance?
Our inner ear is made up of a labyrinth of bone and tissue. Our balance system depends on the workings of this labyrinth. It contains semi-circular canals, otolithic organs and the cochlea. The cochlea is used for listening, and the canals help us maintain our balance. The canals resemble three circular loops, and each of these is responsible for sensing a different kind of movement. One canal senses up and down movements, another senses tilting movements and the other senses side-to-side movements. There’s fluid contained in these tubes, and when it moves, the hair cells in the canals pick up on our movement and relay the information to the brain. This makes for an incredibly sensitive system that tells us how we are moving within space. It can pick-up on complex movements, and can spot even subtle changes. It’s able to interpret when we’re moving in a vehicle, or on an elevator.
What problems might occur?
If this system isn’t working properly it can lead to a variety of potential problems, all of which impact on our balance. This can include dizziness, vertigo and nausea. All of these are severe issues that can potentially have a dramatic impact on our quality of lives.
Can hearing loss cause balance problems?
Although hearing loss and balance issues are often tied together, they do not always occur together. Not everyone who has hearing loss issues will experience balance issues and vice versa. Meniere’s disease and labyrinthitis can both cause hearing and balance problems.
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What are balance disorders?
Any condition that leads to issues with balance or causes vertigo can be described as a balance disorder. They can be caused by commonplace problems such as ear infections, or low blood pressure. They can occasionally be indicative of more serious issues, like improper blood circulation or tumours.
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Whatever is the cause of your balance disorder, it should be treated seriously. Balance disorders can be very stressful and upsetting, and there’s no guarantee they will get better by themselves. A person struggling with their balance might feel that they’re spinning, or perhaps tipping over while standing still. Many sufferers report that they experience rolling vertigo whenever they turn their head, particularly when they’re getting out of bed. They might find themselves stumbling, and feel they need to hold onto walls. They could even find themselves being dragged to the ground.
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Can hearing aids help?
As hearing aids enhance the quality and amount of sound reaching the eardrum, it can give the brain a clearer idea of its surroundings. The individual is better able to interpret auditory landmarks in their immediate vicinity, all of which helps to improve their overall balance. A 2018 study by the University of Washington Medicine School discovered that patients with hearing aids, performed significantly better on standard balance tests when they had their hearing aids turned on, compared to when they were turned off. This study confirms that the balance system is impacted by the amount of sound the brain receives, as much as it is by the sensitive balance system located in the inner-ear. This means that older people with reduced hearing are less likely to be susceptible to slips and falls if they use a hearing aid.
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The full article can be found here.
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