What Is Presbycusis? Causes, Symptoms, and Diagnosis

What Is Presbycusis? Causes, Symptoms, and Diagnosis

by | Jan 13, 2025 | Hearing Loss, Patient Resources, Presbycusis

Presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss, affects 2 out of every 3 Americans ages 70 or older. It has become the most common cause of hearing loss as a result, as it happens to most people as we age.

Presbycusis can be caused by a few different things, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Hearing challenges are just a sign that you’ve been living a busy, exciting life, and your ears can’t keep up with you as well as they used to. It’s not a sign that you’re old – it’s a sign that you’re living!

If you’ve noticed some hearing struggles as you’ve gotten older, you’re in the right place. With professional hearing care personalized for your specific needs, you can address your presbycusis with the guidance of a professional team that wants you to get back to hearing the life you love most.

Causes and Symptoms of Presbycusis

While age-related hearing loss is, predictably, caused by getting older, there are a few factors that could lead toward your diagnosis of presbycusis.

If your family has a history of hearing loss, genetics can be a major culprit in your hearing loss challenges. Did your parents or grandparents develop a hearing loss as they got older? There’s every chance that you will as well.

Noise exposure and inner ear damage because of certain medications, also known as ototoxicity, can lead to hearing challenges later in life.

Symptoms of presbycusis include needing a higher volume to hear your phone, TV, or computer; struggling to hear high-pitched sounds like alarms ringing or birds singing; and feeling lost in crowded conversation spaces, like in restaurants or bars.

How Do You Diagnose and Treat Presbycusis?

Presbycusis is quite common, which means it’s easy to manage with the help of professional hearing care.

The first step to diagnosing your age-related hearing loss is with a comprehensive hearing assessment, where your audiologist will help shed light on your specific hearing needs and offer professional recommendations on how to look after your ears.

The most common way to treat hearing loss, age-related or not, is with hearing aids, which have had a negative stigma linked to them to do with aging, but as technology evolves, so do hearing aids – they’re not the awkward, bulky devices of old anymore!

Advanced hearing aid technology is not only now more discreet but also significantly more powerful and comes with a litany of features that provide background noise dampening, tinnitus sound therapy, Bluetooth connectivity for direct audio streaming, and more.

With the professional guidance and support of your audiologist, your hearing aids will be programmed, fitted, adjusted, and maintained with the utmost care so that you can rest assured that your presbycusis won’t stop you from living your active and independent lifestyle to the fullest.

Manage Your Presbycusis with Aim Hearing

If you’ve been on the lookout for professional audiology care with your unique needs considered with every step, you’re in the right place.

Starting your hearing health journey is often the most stressful part, but you’ve read this far! Take control of your hearing health in 2025 with the help of your friendly neighborhood audiologists in Greensboro.

Simply request a callback to get in touch with us – we’ll contact you to answer your questions, alleviate concerns, or simply chat with you about your unique circumstances and what we can do to help.

Don’t want to wait? Give us a call at (336) 295-1064.

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Dr. Shannon Frymark Au.D., CCC-A

Shannon Frymark, Au.D., CCC-A, audiologist, was raised in Greensboro, NC. Dr. Shannon’s passion for the field of audiology stems from personal experience. Born with a hearing loss in both ears, she has worn hearing aids since age 3. She is considered a technology expert because of her experience with so many different hearing aids and assistive listening devices throughout the years.She received her Bachelor of Science in Communication Disorders and Master of Arts degree in Audiology from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She was awarded her doctorate in Audiology from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry: School of Audiology. While in undergraduate and graduate school, she worked at the Central School for the Deaf as a residential counselor. Dr. Frymark spent the first five years of her audiology career with Florida Hospital in central Florida.

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