Unit4- 6.3~ Malfunctions of eye and ear Flashcards
What is deafness?
An inability to hear or hearing difficulties
What are the types of hearing loss?
- Conductive hearing loss: Occurs when there is a problem conducting sound waves along the route through the ear. This occurs in conjunction with sensorineural hearing loss or alone
- Sensorineural hearing loss: Is a type of loss/deafness which the root cause lies in the inner ear or sensory organ or the vestibulocochlear nerve or neural part. SNHL accounts for 90% of hearing loss
What factors cause hearing loss?
- Sudden hearing loss due to earwax, an ear infection, a burst eardrum
- Sudden hearing loss from damage from loud noise or certain medicines
- Gradual hearing loss due to interal- fluid, bony growth, build up of skin cells
- Gradual hearing loss due to ageing or exposure to loud noise
What are the symptoms for hearing loss?
- Difficult hearing people, misunderstandings
- Asking those to repeat themselves
- Listening to music, TV loudly
- Concentrate hard to hear others
What is cataracts?
A clouding of the eyes lens that can cause foggy, blurry vision
What factors cause cataracts?
- Family history
- Smoking
- Diabetes
- Eye injury
- long-term use of steroids
- Too much alcohol
What are the symptoms of cataracts?
- Blurred eyesights
- Lights too bright or glaring
- Harder to see in low light
- Colours look faded
What are the lifestyle changes of cataracts?
- Stronger glasses and brughter reading lights may help
- Surgery to remove and replace affected lense
- Surgery is the only treatment thats proven to be effective
What are the lifestyle effects of cataracts?
- Driving is affected
- Reading/swelling
- Glasses are needed after surgery
What is childhood cataracts?
Referred to as:
* Congenital cataracts- Presented when a baby is born or afterwarfs
* Developmental, infantile or juvenile cataracts- diagnosed in older babies/children.
* Affect between 3 and 4 in every 10000 children
What is glaucoma?
A chronic eye disease that damages the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain
What factors cause glaucoma?
- Build up of pressure in the eye when fluid is unable to drain properly
- This increases pressure and damages the nerve connected to eye and brain
What are the symptoms of glaucoma?
- Doesnt cause symptoms to begin with
- Dvelops over years and affects the edges of your vision
- Blurred vision
- Seeing rainbow coloured circles around bright lights
What are the lifestyle changes/Effects of glaucoma?
- Acute angle closure glaucoma- uncommed type caused by drainage in the eye becoming sunddenly blocked, can raise pressure in eye
- Secondary glaucoma- rare type that occurs in young children caused by abnormality of the eye
- can cause blindness
- Driving is affected
What is Age-related macular degeneration (AMD)?
A condition that affects the vision of the middle part of the eye
What factors cause AMD?
- Caused by a problem with the macula, a spot at the centre of the retina
- As you age the light-sensitive cells in macula start to break down
What are the symptoms of AMD?
- Blurring of central vision
- Lose visual acuity: ability to see fine detail
- Lose contrast sensitivity: Able to distinguish between objects like face adn background
- Images, writing, faces can become disorted in the centre
What is wet AMD?
Known as advanced neovascular AMD, less common than AMD that occurs when abnormal blood vessels grow in the macula
What is dry AMD?
- Known as atrophic AMD and is more common that occurs when the macula thins over time
