Understanding hearing disorders :: Mmegi Online

How our ears work When something in the environment makes a sound, this creates changes in the pressure known as sound waves. These sound waves enter the outer ear and travel through a narrow passageway called the ear canal, which leads to the eardrum. The sound waves cause the eardrum to vibrate, and the vibrations are transmitted across the middle ear by the three small bones called the malleus, incus and stapes.

These bones increase the strength of the vibrations and pass them to the cochlea, a snail-shaped structure filled with fluid, in the inner ear. The cochlea is filled with fluid and contains tiny hair cells. The vibrations from the bones cause the fluid to ripple and in turn make the hair cells to bend. The tiny hair cells translate the vibrations from sound waves into electrical impulses that then travel along a complex pathway of nerve fibers to the brain, which recognises them as sound.

What is a hearing loss?

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