Levels Of Hearing Loss

Doctors classify hearing loss by degrees: from mild, moderate, severe, or profound. As the stages progress, the person with hearing loss becomes increasingly cut off from the world of speech and sounds. The symptoms of these categories include:

Levels of Hearing Loss

Mild hearing loss. One-on-one conversations are fine but it becomes hard to catch every word in the presence of background noise.

Moderate hearing loss. You often need to ask people to repeat themselves during in-person and telephone conversations.

Severe hearing loss. Following a conversation is almost impossible without a hearing aid.

Profound hearing loss. You cannot hear other people speaking, unless they are extremely loud. Without a hearing aid or cochlear implant you cannot understand speech.

Degree of hearing loss refers to the severity of the loss. The table below shows one of the more commonly used classification systems. The numbers are representative of the patient's hearing loss range in decibels (dB HL)

Normal	–10 to 15
Slight	16 to 25
Mild	26 to 40
Moderate	41 to 55
Moderately severe	56 to 70
Severe	71 to 90
Profound	91+

Levels of hearing loss

We use the term 'hearing loss' to cover all kinds of deafness.

There are four different levels of hearing loss, defined by the quietest sound that people are able to hear, measured in decibels (dB).

Mild hearing loss:

• Quietest sound: 25 - 39 dB.
• Can sometimes make following speech difficult, particularly in noisy situations.

Moderate hearing loss:

• Quietest sound: 40 - 69 dB.
• May have difficulty following speech without hearing aids.

Severe hearing loss:

• Quietest sound: 70 - 94 dB.
• Usually need to lipread or use sign language, even with hearing aids.

Profound deafness:

• Quietest sound: 95 dB+
• Usually need to lipread or use sign language.