Moderate Presbycusis
Moderate age-related loss affecting the mid and high frequencies. Conversation takes more effort than it used to, following people in noisy places is genuinely difficult, and the TV volume tends to creep up over time. Most adults over 65 have some degree of this.
Summary
- Pure-tone average (PTA) · Left ear
- 27 dB
- Pure-tone average (PTA) · Right ear
- 27 dB
- Most loss at
- 8 kHz · 75 dB
- Severity
- Moderate
Pure-tone average is the quietest tone each ear can just hear, averaged across three pitches central to speech (500 Hz, 1 kHz, and 2 kHz). It’s the single number U.S. audiologists use to sum up an audiogram. 15 dB or lower is typical hearing, and every 10 dB higher means sounds need to be about twice as loud to be heard. Internationally, the World Health Organization averages four pitches, adding 4 kHz, so where high pitches have more loss its number comes out higher.
Degree of the worse ear, averaged over all eight frequencies, on the scale used by U.S. audiologists (ASHA)
Thresholds by frequency
| Hz | L | R |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | 5 | 5 |
| 500 | 15 | 15 |
| 1k | 25 | 25 |
| 2k | 40 | 40 |
| 3k | 55 | 55 |
| 4k | 65 | 65 |
| 6k | 70 | 70 |
| 8k | 75 | 75 |