% vs dB-hate it

lovezebras

lovezebras

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I really can't stand when people try to explain their loss with percents! Not sure if they just don't know or they think it's easier to explain with percentages but just an FYI it's incorrect. Check your audiogram and use dB. Here is an image to better help some hoh newbs or just people who have not taken the time to learn their own audiograms.

tete_electro-05_en.jpg
 
Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Bold )

I know - it makes me crazy too !!!

Percentages me nothing - and even if you could make them make any sense the formula would be ridiculiusly complicated (taking Db & frequnecy into account, weighing those results on a sliding scale etc).

It's why I always post in Db or ranges for myself.

For example:

I'm +120db right (no response)
Mild/mod flux left (all freqs)

I also have APD which impacts both what I hear and how I hear and understand it.
 
I am feeling 90% good today. I think the left side of my spleen is a few ounces heavier than normal. :P

J/K, I get what you mean though. I think it is some kind of social thing people started to use percentages to describe something but it varies between individuals so it makes it confusing in some cases, especially hearing loss.
 
Percentages give "some idea of comparison". Thus saying DEAFness is a 100% loss as in some audiograms defined as NO hearing at 105 db.

As I have mentioned before that is exactly where I was measured after becoming Bilateral DEAF-December 20, 2006. Duly noted at St Michaels ENT clinic/Toronto and passed on to Sunnybrook/Toronto as the basis for consideration re Cochlear Implant

I was not retested. In the end "approved". This happened 5 years ago.

From prior comments here-some persons "say they can hear at 120 Db whatever"-doesn't change what happened to me-however.
 
No one uses % or decibels to explain the hearing loss of their dogs, cats, or ferrets. People and animals can do with what they can or cannot hear.

I mean they're just #s. Why would I care if you had a 50% or 60 % hearing loss?

It's how you're surviving with this that makes difference.
 
I wouldn't even know my % of my loss. I've always known it as 98db right and 109db left. That an average of my loss but it's classed as flat.

I've always known profound starts at 90db but some people say it starts at 95db but in my Audi office his poster says profound starts at 81db. Haven't asked him why!
 
Apparently if you have a 50% loss (I saw on some website where they did the conversion and math and all that) it only equates to having a 3dB loss LOL...so it's very inaccurate and people should probably just stick to using what their loss is in dB. Much easier for anyone to decipher what the heck their loss is.
 
Someone who I work with (she's in her 60s) got HAs last year and she says the hospital told her she's lost 60% in both ears. I couldn't tell her what that meant.
 
60% percent hearing loss would approximate one being in the category "moderate hearing loss".
Of course this is not descriptive/medical terminology.

Most of us- don't use exactly "correct medical terms" in causal conversation-I don't.
 
I have a question....If I have "no response" in both ears, what is the correct answer to this topic. Do I say "total loss" "no response" "profound"
I have learned a lot from alldeaf, so I appreciate your reply. Thanks.
 
drphil said:
60% percent hearing loss would approximate one being in the category "moderate hearing loss".
Of course this is not descriptive/medical terminology.
Click to expand...

That would only be (even vaguely accurate) if they had 100% flat hearing loss, bilaterally - meaning exactly the same amount of hearing loss across all frequencies. Even then saying "moderate" your talking about a 30db window per side, or more accurately a 60db total window (which is HUGE). For that and many other reasons, trying to attach a percentage is actually much more complicated than people realize and still says next to nothing about ones actual hearing loss.

Most of us- don't use exactly "correct medical terms" in causal conversation-I don't.
Click to expand...

We don't? I call all my body parts by their proper names, refer to the type of hearing loss I have in proper medical terms, name my medical conditions by what they actually are, use proper names for medications etc .... so does almost everyone else I know.

The only people I know who use percents for hearing loss are those who haven't been taught (or asked how to) read their audiogram. Everyone who has hearing loss, or has a family member with hearing loss needs to learn how to properly read and understand audiograms - they are VERY straightforward so there's no reason NOT to learn how to read them.

Percentages are absolutely useless ... and don't help anyone actaully understand anything about that person's hearing or lack there off.
 
Angel1989 said:
I have a question....If I have "no response" in both ears, what is the correct answer to this topic. Do I say "total loss" "no response" "profound"
I have learned a lot from alldeaf, so I appreciate your reply. Thanks.
Click to expand...

profound as that is where you get NR or you can just say no response. I have a friend who is NR and she just says profound or Deaf.
 
AliciaM said:
profound as that is where you get NR or you can just say no response. I have a friend who is NR and she just says profound or Deaf.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I wanted to make sure I say the right thing.
 
Angel1989 said:
I have a question....If I have "no response" in both ears, what is the correct answer to this topic. Do I say "total loss" "no response" "profound"
I have learned a lot from alldeaf, so I appreciate your reply. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I'm totally deaf (no response at +120db) on my right side.

I tell people that I have "no hearing at all, I'm totally deaf" on my right.

If they are interested in more details I explain how the machine that tests one's hearing is only able to go up to +120db - and even at that volume I can't hear anything at all (though I can feel the vibrations).

To put it in perspective for them I often explain that if a jet plane was (metaphorically) sitting on my shoulder, my right ear wouldn't be able to hear it at all - it'd just feel the rumble.
 
I've never heard of percentage. DB is used prob to give insurance co an idea. Like mine won't pay for aids if wont last at least 3 years. I have 98 db loss in right ear at least few mos ago. It's gotten worse though, Dr can't make them any louder.:shock:
 
Boobookitty said:
I've never heard of percentage. DB is used prob to give insurance co an idea. Like mine won't pay for aids if wont last at least 3 years. I have 98 db loss in right ear at least few mos ago. It's gotten worse though, Dr can't make them any louder.:shock:
Click to expand...

thank god my insurance doens't work like that...I have maxed out 4 aids in the past 6 years of wearing hearing aids :/
 
As a person who is bilateral DEAF, I would answer- I hear nothing- just silence. Tested at 105 db! Still true today.
I am not sure how one can have a "greater than 100% loss"? To me profound "deafness" is meaningless.

aside: I didn't define myself as "deaf" when I lost all hearing right ear-February 19, 1992.

Another intermural exercise in Sociology-"labeling oneself"
 
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Boobookitty said:
I've never heard of percentage. DB is used prob to give insurance co an idea. Like mine won't pay for aids if wont last at least 3 years. I have 98 db loss in right ear at least few mos ago. It's gotten worse though, Dr can't make them any louder.:shock:
Click to expand...

Db is used because, simply put sound is measured in decibels (db).

It's the same as blood pressure is (for all intents and purposes) always measured using mmHg (millimetres of mercury) which give the systolic & diastolic numbers.

sound can't be measured in percentage for hearing loss because some people can actually hear sounds less than 0db and there actaully isn't a "maximum" for sound volume ... because neither number can be fixed, it makes a percentage functionally impossible.


Frankly if an audiologist tried explaining my hearing loss in percents, I'd get up and leave as it a sign of someone who doesn't communicate properly important data to their client ... it's just sloppy.
 
soutthpaw said:
Just for the OP, Ignore Dr. Phil's comments as she alone has created her own identity of DEAF in all caps. which best I have figured means she is Hearing with her CI and can hear no sound without it and she would be identified as culturally Hearing by Deaf persons. There are 2 generally accepted terms deaf meaning the physiological/ medical of deafness as a loss of hearing and focus only on the medical ramification of such. A capital D Deaf is the cultural view of deafness with the primary requirement that Sign Language and ASL in the USA are the natural language of the Deaf. You cannot be Deaf and not know ASL... It is a culture based on common language, traditions, shared experiences, history etc..

Yes hearing people can be culturally Deaf. Many CODA's, some interpreters, some hearing spouses/ significant others of Deaf persons etc.
My source of expertise to comment on this:
B.A Deaf Studies, CSU Northridge.
I am Deaf, Married to Deaf and have 2 CODA's

PS, an easy way to see who is deaf or Deaf on a forum is look at their signature or posts, culturally hearing will often post the exact dates of their CI surgery, DB loss, brand of HA, CI etc. they all obsess on their hearing loss. Deaf just take it as a part of who they are and rarely will discuss such and probably don't even know the exact loss etc.
Click to expand...

http://www.alldeaf.com/our-world-our-culture/102457-capital-d-deaf-2.html#post2084850
 
Whether "deaf Militants" agree with me re: various comments-not exactly of "pressing import" in my life. To date survived 5 years with my Cochlear Implant.

Nor do I intend to "hire an ASL interpreter to interact with the local "voice off Deaf community" on "whatever".

Apparently it was missed that I never defined myself as DEAF till I became bilateral on December 20, 2006. That is the start of the process-Cochlear Implant. aside: Successful.

An ongoing discussion in labeling- Sociology
 
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