Many factors may contribute to hearing loss during old age.
Hearing loss can progressively happen with age and could be caused by the degeneration of the auditory nerve and/or the cochlea.
Health conditions that are more common among seniors such as diabetes or hypertension may also contribute to hearing loss.
Drugs that are toxic to the auditory sensory cells such as chemotherapy medications may lead to hearing loss.
Many older Australians who experience hearing loss usually have a combination of both age-related hearing loss and noise-induced hearing loss, especially those who worked in noisy workplaces for years.