EXPERTS say that hypertension can significantly increase the possibility of permanent hearing loss by causing degeneration of the hair cells in the inner ear or to the nerve pathways between the inner ear and the brain.
In a new study, the researchers had checked for hearing loss in a group of individuals with hypertension and found that hypertension is an accelerating factor of degeneration of the ears due to ageing.
The researchers, in the West African Journal of Medicine, found a 12.83 per cent prevalence of SNHL among patients with hypertension against 1.77 per cent in the controls. Majority (96.6 per cent) of them demonstrated bilateral, symmetrical, mild SNHL with 51.7 per cent of them being above 50 years.
The study considered the occurrence and pattern of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), the most common form of permanent hearing loss among 226 hypertensive patients aged 21 to 60 years. The blood pressures and hearing thresholds were prospectively evaluated.
They had excluded patients with preexisting hearing loss before hypertension, diabetes, congenital hearing loss, head injury, meningitis and confirmed childhood hearing loss, ototoxic hearing loss, noise-induced hearing loss, and known retroviral disease.
Hearing loss is any degree of impairment of the ability to comprehend sound. It is also partial or total inability to hear sound in either one or both ears. Fifty per cent of the causes are avoidable by prevention or early treatment. Hypertension is one of the causative factors for hearing loss and duration and severity of hypertension increase risk of hearing loss.
Hearing loss may be worse in elderly patients who have other parallel advancing age diseases including hypertension. Any degree of hearing loss will affect communication and this would lead to a reduced quality of life. It has psychosocial effects like low self esteem, isolation, depression and irritability.
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