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People employ their five senses to communicate with others and to take in information from the surrounding environment. If you experience sight or hearing problems, the results can be frustrating or even traumatic in the most severe causes. Fortunately, modern science and medical care now help people live quality lives, regardless of the physical challenges that may have been caused by a range of conditions.

Many diseases that are controlled in populations today were common occurrences centuries ago, and could lead to deafness or blindness. Such limitations made life very difficult for afflicted individuals, especially if they were children still in the process of developing linguistic abilities when they fell ill. One example of someone who overcame the obstacles of such a condition is Helen Keller, born two decades before the end of the nineteenth century in Alabama.

While early versions of hearing aids existed at the time, doctors could not find a way to restore her abilities to see or listen to the world around her. Just a toddler when she lost these sense, she writes of being extremely frustrated as a young child. Until Helen found a teacher who developed a system to explain the word to her, she struggled as a young child when she could not make herself understood. She nonetheless was able to attend college and had wonderful teachers who helped her learn, which led her to write books that were published in multiple languages. Helen Keller is still admired for her courage in the face of adversity, as it was not easy for her to participate in conversations or do many other things that most people take for granted.

Fortunately, the types of diseases that led to Keller's condition have generally been controlled. However, hearing loss can result from other medical conditions. Certain genetic conditions can also cause families to have multiple members who are unable to receive all or some sounds. Yet in many cases, it is not complete and the use of a hearing aid can help an individual participate normally in all that life has to offer.

For certain segments of the population, gradual hearing loss is quite common. People who grow up near airports or work in noisy factories may be exposed to dangerous sound levels, measured in decibels. Impairment can even be the result of commonly used appliances including power tools, hairdryers, and lawn mowers. Government agencies try to set safety standards to reduce the possibilities that groups of people will encounter such problems, but environmental noise exposure often leads to hearing problems in the long-term. This makes it more difficult to detect and to measure, unless you make checking your sensitivity to sounds a priority.

Whether or not you have been exposed to significant environmental noise in your lifetime, it is also probable that aging will cause a reduction in your hearing abilities. As people age, it becomes more probable you will have trouble listening to others in crowded environments or picking up on high-pitched sounds. Hearing solutions include multiple models that discretely fit on your ear, so that others may not even notice it.