Traumatic brain injuries, including concussion, may lead to hearing and vision problems. Sometimes,  these hearing and vision injuries are either not immediately apparent or require additional testing to  be diagnosed, according to experts from the Defense Health Agency. These injuries may show up  together. 

If you think you have a concussion, known as mild TBI, and may be experiencing hearing or vision  changes, here’s what to know. 

Those diagnosed with mild TBI should have a complete set of hearing tests to see if they’ve been affected. 

“Oftentimes, TBI patients are informed they do not have hearing loss despite their perceived  listening difficulties, which is why additional measures to establish auditory processing abilities are  required,” said National Intrepid Center of Excellence researcher Melissa Kokx-Ryan, who holds a  doctorate in audiology and in hearing, speech, and language sciences. NICoE is the center of DHA’s  TBI clinical care, research, and education and is located at Walter Reed National Military Medical  Center in Bethesda, Maryland. 

“A standard audiometric evaluation for a TBI patient should start with a traditional hearing test but  also include measures of auditory processing abilities in complex environments,” she explained.  Complex environments can be situations with multiple talkers or a lot of background noise such as a  restaurant or meeting.

 

“Typically, these patients do well in quiet listening environments with one  talker who is looking at them but add in background noise and someone not facing them while  talking and they start to struggle.” 

According to DHA’s Hearing Center of Excellence, auditory processing disorder symptoms may include:

• struggling to understand speech in noisy settings;
• problems recognizing spoken words or  keeping up with telephone conversations;
• finding it hard to tell the difference between words that  sound alike
• feeling uncertain about where the words you hear are coming from. 

Tinnitus, a buzzing, hissing, humming, or high-pitched tonal and continual ringing sound heard in  the head or ears, can also be associated with hearing loss and TBI.

*For more information reach out to your DHA/TRICARE representative.

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