Presbycusis and Auditory agnosia

Abstract

  Auditory threshold elevation with aging starts from the high-frequency band in humans. The inner ear is influenced by aging and inner ear disorder interferes with the hearing of words and music. On the other hand, pathologically, aging-associated nerve loss in the brainstem auditory conduction pathway is mild. Accordingly, confirmation of hearing at the peripheral level is important in the close examination of central hearing impairment.
  In this study, auditory agnosia and Landau-Kleffner syndrome-associated pure word deafness, cortical deafness, were investigated mainly in our patients. In the auditory agnosia patients, threshold elevation of their hearing ability was mild to moderate, and they were able to hear words and environmental sounds but could not understand the meaning. The rate of being able to discriminate vowels was 50% and they could not discriminate consonants. In the pure word deafness patients, hearing ability ranged from normal to mild threshold elevation, the rate of being able to discriminate vowels was 100%, and confusions of consonants were noted. No problem regarding the recognition of environmental sounds was noted. In the patients with cortical deafness, pure tone hearing ability showed no reaction and the discrimination of both words and environmental sounds was difficult. In addition, the patients with cortical deafness could be divided into those whose voice became and did not become loud. Irrespective of this, ABR was within the normal range.