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Hearing loss: types, audiograms and aids
Hearing loss: types, audiograms and aids: this guide covers conductive vs sensorineural in plain words, how to read your own audiogram (dB HL, the speech…
This guide is general education, not a diagnosis or an individual treatment plan. Urgent, severe or worsening symptoms belong with the local emergency service or a qualified clinician.
What this guide covers
This guide covers conductive vs sensorineural in plain words, how to read your own audiogram (dB HL, the speech banana, the WHO grades), age-related loss and why consonants go first, noise-induced loss with the exposure-time table, sudden one-sided hearing loss as a 72-hour emergency that most people sit on for a fortnight, ototoxic medicines, one-sided loss that needs imaging, hearing aid types and what they cost and how reimbursement works in Estonia and Finland, cochlear implant criteria, hearing in children and the school-age signs, and living with a hard-of- hearing parent.
One focused section asks: "Sudden hearing loss in one ear: the 72-hour rule".
How to use it
Start with the description that most closely matches your question about Hearing loss: types, audiograms and aids. Use the evidence section to understand what is known, then use the boundary section to decide when self-education should stop and clinical care should begin.
The page keeps the main question, its evidence base and its limits together in one canonical place. That makes it useful as a quick orientation and avoids splitting a broad subject into shallow pages before each narrower answer has enough verified material of its own.
Search vocabulary in four languages
Terminology changes across borders. These are example phrases people use for the same subject in Estonian, Finnish, Russian and English; they are included as a practical vocabulary aid, not as hidden keywords.
| Language | Example phrase |
|---|---|
| Estonian | kuulmislangus põhjused |
| Estonian | kuuldeaparaadi hind ja soodustus |
| Finnish | kuulon alenema syyt |
| Russian | внезапная потеря слуха на одно ухо |
| English | how to read an audiogram |
Evidence and provenance
The evidence map below records the primary, official or openly licensed material chosen for this guide. It is deliberately visible so a reader can tell the difference between a rule published by an authority, a measured dataset and an editorial explanation.
Source: WHO World report on hearing 2021 (CC BY-NC-SA) for grades and safe- listening levels, WHO-ITU H.870 safe listening standard, national aid reimbursement rules (Eesti Haigekassa and Kela, official pages). · checked 2026-09-09
Source names are preserved even where an authority changes its web address. No figure is added to this launch page unless it is already present in the cited source description or can be computed from a named dataset.
Scope and boundaries
/hearing tests your own ears in a browser; this explains the clinical result, the device and who pays for it.
Connected TempoLife guides
The following paths are the intentional hand-offs named in the brief. They keep adjacent subjects separate while making the next useful reference easy to find.
Noise
Continue to the related TempoLife reference.
Seniors
Continue to the related TempoLife reference.
Jobs
Continue to the related TempoLife reference.
Why it belongs on TempoLife
/hearing, /noise, /seniors, /jobs.
Frequently asked questions
What does this guide cover?
This guide covers conductive vs sensorineural in plain words, how to read your own audiogram (dB HL, the speech banana, the WHO grades), age-related loss and why consonants go first, noise-induced loss with the exposure-time table, sudden one-sided hearing loss as a 72-hour emergency that most people sit on for a fortnight, ototoxic medicines, one-sided loss that needs imaging, hearing aid types and what they cost and how reimbursement works in Estonia and Finland, cochlear implant criteria, hearing in children…
What evidence does it use?
WHO World report on hearing 2021 (CC BY-NC-SA) for grades and safe- listening levels, WHO-ITU H.870 safe listening standard, national aid reimbursement rules (Eesti Haigekassa and Kela, official pages).
Where does this guide stop?
/hearing tests your own ears in a browser; this explains the clinical result, the device and who pays for it.
Turn the reference into a routine
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