Hearing Loss and the Hearing Function

"Hearing impairment" or "hearing loss" is thought to be a consequence
of age, but from an up-to-date investigation, it became clear that
there are other causes other than age. While in China, they believe
that the hearing function has something to do with smell.

Do you know that the sound of music you hear may be different when
heard by others? Why will it be heard differently depending on the
person?

Suppose that before we play music, we inform the listeners that there
shall be a word or noise saying "New York, New York", and ask the
listeners how many times they heard it? Probably 70-80% of them will
say, "Yes, yes, we heard that". But then, there was not even a
word "New York" at all but we just inserted scratching noise.

From this experiment, we understand that the Chinese was right to say
that the hearing function has something to do with smell. We really
do not hear sounds by our ears alone. We hear sounds both by smell
and vision, too. Our brain is made to fill up the portions where
objects are blank or hidden.

Now let's take another case. Let's say you saw a bomb blasting photo
and you did not hear any sound. But by means of seeing the blasted
bomb, you will imagine a "Big Bang" or illusion of sounds that exists
in your brain. The brain recalls or restores the sounds lacking in
the photo. You can call it "Phonological restoration".

We also conducted experiments of hearing impairment with the elders
and young people. As expected, in a certain accustomed short Japanese
words, the elders can hear more than the younger ones. However,
English-related short words were heard by younger people. From this
experiment, we truly conclude that hearing is not only by ear but by
individual memories, too. Memories in the brain can repair or fix the
part where sounds are not heard and remain blank. And they can
understand it as if they heard it right.

It's just like the illustrations below. The sights are obstructed or
blocked by lattice doors or windows. Yet, you can imagine the
unviewed portions and repair it to see or imagine the entire sight.
It is just the same with the hearing function.

http://www.pyroenergen.com/articles08/images/window-grills.jpg
http://www.pyroenergen.com/articles08/images/door-grills.jpg

The way this repair capability works varies on the subject among
young and old people. Although it is true that the hearing function
weakens with age, there are ways to restore it artificially. Also,
there are elders whose hearing function is greater than young stars.

Do you notice that elderly people can gather easily and talk to each
other and gossips go around without end? There appears to be no
problem of hearing loss among them. Why?

It is because when the subject of their conversation is favorable
among them, they can fix or repair unknowingly where they were not
able to hear by means of action or movement of each lip. It is just
like the grill window illustrations shown above.

Of course, it is true that when most of us get old, our hearing
senses deteriorate due to hardening of eardrums.

Well, what is the main reason of hearing loss? Our studies show that
there are many elderly who have good hearing just like young people.
We tried to analyze more conclusively on what can cause hearing loss.

At first, we came to understand that people who have hyperlipidemia
(excessive fats in blood), diabetes, and kidney disease are more at
risk of hearing loss or deafness.

In the case of hyperlipidemia, cholesterol deposits form on the inner
surfaces of the arteries obstructing blood flow, and will easily clog
the capillaries in the ear. In addition, diabetes can cause raised
capillary pressure. And when kidney function fails, the ability to
discharge the wastes that formed in the ear capillaries will also
fail. Improvement in lifestyle such as moderate exercise and healthy
diet will help prevent hearing impairment or deafness.

There are families that have misunderstanding or troubles among the
elderly and young generations even in various companies because of
hearing loss.

Try to make subjects to talk about at the same level with young and
old generations. In this way, you can avoid frequent
misunderstandings or misinterpretations from each other.

Let's start just like gossip-gathering.