Severe Presbycusis
Significant age-related loss across the full hearing range. Even one-on-one conversation in a quiet room is hard to follow, and group settings are largely inaccessible without hearing aids. At this level, hearing aids alone may not restore enough clarity.
Summary
- Severity
- Severe72 dB HL
- Most loss at
- 6 kHz · 90 dB
Degree of the worse ear, averaged over all eight frequencies, on the scale used by U.S. audiologists (ASHA)
Pure-tone average (PTA)
- Left ear
- 63dB
- Moderately severe
- Right ear
- 63dB
- Moderately severe
What’s a pure-tone average?
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 normal 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.
Thresholds by frequency
| Hz | L | R |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | 40 | 40 |
| 500 | 50 | 50 |
| 1k | 65 | 65 |
| 2k | 75 | 75 |
| 3k | 80 | 80 |
| 4k | 85 | 85 |
| 6k | 90 | 90 |
| 8k | 90 | 90 |