- Hypertension
- Arthritis
- Hearing Loss
As many as 29 million people in the
One-third of adults over the age 60 are hard of hearing and up to half of those age 75 or older are hard of hearing, according to the House Ear Institute.
Hearing loss associated with aging most often results from cumulative damage to the hair cells in the cochlea, which, like other body parts, suffer the wear and tear of age. The first to decline are those in the outer part of the cochlea that are sensitive to high-frequency sounds, including those produced by the consonants f, sh, ch, p, s and t, which are crucial to clarity in perceiving speech. The low-frequency vowel sounds are the last to go.
