Trouble hearing NOT in the ears; brain is not processing the sounds - study

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Trouble hearing in elderly people keeps them uncomfortable among family and outsiders. They cannot hear what the discussion is about and what people are suggesting. A new study reveals that problem actually may not be in the ears.

People having trouble hearing in a loud setting actually suffer from the disability of their brain to process the speech in a quick and easy manner.

The co-author of the study Jonathan Simon who is a professor at University of Maryland's Institute for Systems Research maintains that apart from the typically known hearing loss that is linked to old age, brain also slows down its function of processing the sound of spoken words especially when there are background noises, too.

Trouble hearing is double folded for those typically elderly individuals. Simon says that hearing aids can solve the issue only partially and not wholly.

A younger listener may not even pay attention to the background sounds. But for an elderly person any sound moderate to high in the background can cause trouble hearing, reports Health.com.

With the age, the nerve impairment takes place in the brain due to which the brain cells do not communicate and signal between one another.

Trouble Hearing Solution

The solution, according to Simon, could be a sort of physical therapy for speech recognition and hearing. With this youthful aspects of the brain can be restored.  

Robert Frisina, director of Global Center for Hearing and Speech Research at the University of South Florida's, in Tampa, considers the new study an advancement in trouble hearing treatment.

According to Robert Frisina neurodegenerative changes happening in the brain have a main role in causing age-related hearing loss and recognition of speech especially with the background sounds.

Now, with better understating of brain-aging process at molecular levels, it is easy to target these molecular changes with drugs or medicines.

Webmd maintains that in future hearing trouble treatment will combine both cutting-edge medication and hearing therapy!