Understand hearing impairment and prevent deafness

What is hearing impairment

Hearing impairment, commonly known as deafness, refers to all kinds of reasons that lead to people’s hearing difficulties, inability to hear or hear the environment sound and speech sound.

The degree includes the following:

Mild: difficulty in listening to conversation

Moderate: it’s difficult to listen to loud speech

Heavy: shouting in the ear can only hear a few words

Extremely severe: you can’t hear anything when you shout in your ear

Hearing impairment will directly affect people’s life, work and study; for children, it can affect the development of their language ability, and for those who are serious, they can be deaf and dumb.

What are the high risk groups of hearing impairment?

People with family history of deafness

Have other ear diseases, such as otitis media and Meniere’s disease

Long term exposure to noise

History of ototoxic drugs

Suffer from chronic systemic diseases, such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes

Have bad habits, such as smoking and drinking

Long term mental stress

How to prevent hearing impairment

Different preventive measures can be taken according to the cause of hearing impairment and the population. If there are deafness members in the family, attention should be paid to the genetic diagnosis of deafness, so as to take measures to avoid deafness in other members.

Pregnant women should strengthen nutrition and reduce infection in the early stage of pregnancy. Ototoxic drugs should be avoided as much as possible during pregnancy. High-risk pregnant women also need to strengthen their own and fetal monitoring to avoid hearing impairment of newborns.

Active prevention and treatment of otitis media. Prevent sewage and foreign matters from entering the external ear canal, do not pull out ears at will, and pay attention to ear hygiene. In case of otitis media, see a doctor in time.

Try to keep away from noise or reduce the time of noise exposure to prevent noise induced deafness.

The elderly should establish healthy diet and living habits, actively treat hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and other chronic diseases, and prevent presbycusis.

Use ototoxic drugs carefully to prevent drug-induced deafness.

What is prenatal genetic diagnosis of deafness?

There are many factors that affect the hearing of newborn. Heredity is one of the most important factors. Prenatal diagnosis of deafness is one of the most effective means to prevent the occurrence of hereditary deafness. Prenatal diagnosis of deafness is to use the gene diagnosis technology of deafness to make clear the deafness genes carried by parents and the risk of future generations. Before the birth of the fetus, the corresponding fetal tissues are taken according to different gestational periods to understand the situation of fetal deafness genes, so as to make a diagnosis of whether it is hereditary deafness. If a couple has had a deaf child, they must make a molecular diagnosis of the child before they are ready to be pregnant again, and then consider the issue of re pregnancy after the diagnosis is made clear.

At present, the prenatal diagnosis of deafness is mainly invasive. According to the different gestational weeks of pregnant women, different parts were selected to extract fetal genetic material. Because deafness is not life-threatening, combined with ethical considerations, prenatal diagnosis of deafness is not recommended for pregnant women over 28 weeks. With the development of technology, noninvasive prenatal diagnosis will be applied to clinical practice in the near future.

What is the process of newborn hearing screening?

About 72 hours after birth, the baby should receive hearing screening (primary screening). If the baby fails to pass the primary screening, it should be re screened about 42 days. If the baby fails to pass the re screening, it should be referred to the hearing diagnosis center within 3 months. The babies with high risk factors of hearing loss (such as jaundice, hypoxia, etc.) at birth, who fail to pass the primary screening, are directly referred to the hearing diagnosis center within 3 months of age for diagnosis.

If the baby passes the newborn hearing screening, it means that the current hearing function is normal, but the risk of delayed hearing loss cannot be excluded. Therefore, the 0-6-year-old baby should receive the hearing screening of children’s health care institutions every year.

What are the key ages of hearing screening for preschool children

In 2013, the general office of the national health and Family Planning Commission issued the technical specification for children’s ear and hearing care, which stipulates that children should also have ear and hearing care at the same time of health examination after passing the hearing screening in neonatal period, of which the age of 6, 12, 24 and 36 months is the key age for hearing screening.

Children who pass the hearing screening at birth may suffer from hearing loss at all stages of their growth and development, which will have a serious impact on their speech development and learning. Therefore, hearing screening in childhood is essential!

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