As the human body ages, certain parts fail to repair themselves and you might be surprised to find out that hearing loss is 4 times more common than vision loss among the elderly. Conductive hearing loss results form excessive earwax that accumulates inside the ear canal preventing sound from travelling all the way through. There can also be some changes in the brain that causes this to occur and along with mechanical damage (results from trauma to the inner ear that is mostly irreversible) leding to deafness. Mechanical damage can happen to younger people as a result of injuries to the head or ear itself as with a foreign body that pierces the ear membrane that can cause an infection. Tinnitus is characterized by a distressing noise within the hearing system and its many parts that can be brought about by old age. Menieres Disease is worse than the previous for it has vertigo accompanying the hearing loss and deafening sound often resilting in imbalance. Most of the inner ear once damage is beyond repair except for some that can be operated on and corrected through mechanical means.