Inner Ear Hearing Loss Part I: Prevalence, Diagnosis and Etiology

Hearing loss is one of the most dominant handicaps in modern societies, which additionally very often is not realized or not admitted. About one quarter of the general population suffers from inner ear hearing loss and is therefore restricted in communicational skills. Demographic factors like increasing age play an important role as well as environmental influences and an increasing sound and noise exposure especially in leisure activities. Thus borders between a "classical" presbyacusis - if it ever existed - and envirionmentally induced hearing loss disappear. Today restrictions in hearing ability develop earlier in age but at the same time they are detected and diagnosed earlier. This paper can eventually enlighten the wide field of inner ear hearing loss only fragmentarily; therefore mainly new research, findings and developments are reviewed. The first part discusses new aspects of diagnostics of inner ear hearing loss and different etiologies.