Facts and figures about deafness in the UK
- Just fewer than 9 million people in the UK, suffer from some degree of hearing difficulty or are deaf, which is one person in seven.
- Problems with the ears account for a third of visits to hospital before a child is eighteen months old.
- In the developed world the most common sensory disability is loss of hearing.
- 840 babies are born daily with impaired hearing in both ears, that means every day there are two babies born who will not to able to hear properly.
- Over fifty percent of totally deaf babies are not diagnosed until they are eighteen months old and can speak. This means critical stages in their development are irretrievably lost. More than half of these cases result from a genetic defect.
- Over 80% of school children will suffer from glue ear at some time. It is the most common reason for pre-school children to be taken to the doctor. Over half of these cases will go on for three months.
- One in five people over the age of 50, have a level of hearing loss, the second most chronic disease after backache.
- The ossicles are the smallest three bones in the body, and are connected together to make up the ossicular chain.
- Some children’s toys are capable of producing sound levels of up to 80-110 dBA.
- Approximately six per cent of children suffer from hyperacusis which is over-sensitivity to noise.
- Over 1.1 million people are exposed to potentially damaging noise levels, on a daily basis, whilst at work, and a further 170,000 already suffer from noise-related hearing disorders. Health and safety regulations, state that employers must take action to regulate the noise levels if the workplace noise exceeds 80 dBA.
- The Medical Research Council’s Institute of Hearing Research has found that 18.8% of young people are exposed to loud music for long enough to constitute a hazard to hearing.
- 70 to 80% of people who visit nightclubs will experience temporary tinnitus, with the potential to cause longer-term hearing problems.
- More than 4 million people in the UK are affected by tinnitus, the medical name for inexplicable noises in the head or ears.
- Technology in the UK is such that around 2 million people would benefit from use of hearing aids, but only 1.4 million people actually use them.
- 5 million more people in the U.K. would benefit from further improvements in hearing aids.
- One in thirty people have a hearing aid in Britain, but one in ten would have improved hearing abilities if they had one.
- Already 30,000 people have now received a cochlear implant globally.
- Age-related hearing loss normally begins at around 50, and 55 per cent of people over 60 are deaf or hard of hearing.
- Few people over the age of 65 can hear tones with a frequency of 10,000 cycles per second.
- This loss of perception of high frequencies interferes with identifying individuals by their voices and with understanding conversation in a group.
- 80% of all deafness results from sensorineural deafness which is damage to the sensitive hair cells within the inner ear or cochlea.
- Sensorineural deafness can be caused by exposure to loud noise, certain prescribed medicines including some antibiotics or simply through old age.
- People with acquired hearing loss may experience disassociation from their environment due to the absence of everyday background sounds. This feeling of being ‘cut off’ erodes confidence and it may lead to depression. In cases of profound deafness it may affect speech as well.
- Deaf people are more at risk in public places because they cannot hear a warning system, there are few tactile alarm systems.
- Deaf people may be disadvantaged because they cannot access telecommunications and therefore cannot get information, unless they have access to a text phone.
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