Subjects' symptoms from non-compaction cardiomyopathy range widely. It is possible to be diagnosed with the condition, yet not to have any of the symptoms associated with heart disease. Likewise it possible to have severe heart failure, which even though the condition is present from birth, may only manifest itself later in life. Differences in symptoms between adults and children are also prevalent with adults more likely to have heart failure and children from depression of systolic function.

Common symptoms associated with a reduced pumping performance of the heart include:

- Breathlessness

- Fatigue

- Swelling of the ankles

- Limited physical capacity and exercise intolerance

Two conditions though that are more prevalent in noncompaction cardiomyopathy are: tachyarrhythmia which can lead to sudden cardiac death and clotting of the blood in the heart.

Dilated cardiomyopathy develops insidiously, and may not initially cause symptoms significant enough to impact on quality of life. Nevertheless, many people experience significant symptoms. These might include:

- Shortness of breath

- Syncope (fainting)

- Angina, but only in the presence of ischemic heart disease

A person suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy may have an enlarged heart, with pulmonary edema and an elevated jugular venous pressure and a low pulse pressure. Signs of mitral and tricuspid regurgitation may be present.

Non-compaction cardiomyopathy (NCC), also called spongiform cardiomyopathy, is a rare congenital cardiomyopathy that affects both children and adults. It results from the failure of myocardial development during embryogenesis.

During development, the majority of the heart muscle is a sponge-like meshwork of interwoven myocardial fibers. As normal development progresses, these trabeculated structures undergo significant compaction that transforms them from spongy to solid. This process is particularly apparent in the ventricles, and particularly so in the left ventricle. Noncompaction cardiomyopathy results when there is failure of this process of compaction. Because the consequence of non-compaction is particularly evident in the left ventricle, the condition is also called left ventricular noncompaction. Other hypotheses and models have been proposed, none of which is as widely accepted as the noncompaction model.

Symptoms range greatly in severity. Most are a result of a poor pumping performance by the heart. The disease can be associated with other problems with the heart and the body.

Cardiomyopathies can be classified using different criteria:

- Primary/intrinsic cardiomyopathies

- Genetic

- Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

- Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC)

- LV non-compaction

- Ion Channelopathies

- Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM)

- Restrictive cardiomyopathy (RCM)

- Acquired

- Stress cardiomyopathy

- Myocarditis

- Ischemic cardiomyopathy

- Secondary/extrinsic cardiomyopathies

- Metabolic/storage

- Fabry's disease

- hemochromatosis

- Endomyocardial

- Endomyocardial fibrosis

- Hypereosinophilic syndrome

- Endocrine

- diabetes mellitus

- hyperthyroidism

- acromegaly

- Cardiofacial

- Noonan syndrome

- Neuromuscular

- muscular dystrophy

- Friedreich's ataxia

- Other

- Obesity-associated cardiomyopathy

Symptoms of cardiomyopathies may include fatigue, swelling of the lower extremities and shortness of breath. Further indications of the condtion may include:

- Arrhythmia

- Fainting

- Diziness

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a condition in which the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump blood effectively. Symptoms vary from none to feeling tired, leg swelling, and shortness of breath. It may also result in chest pain or fainting. Complications can include heart failure, heart valve disease, or an irregular heartbeat.

Causes include genetics, alcohol, cocaine, certain toxins, complications of pregnancy, and certain infections. Coronary artery disease and high blood pressure may play a role, but are not the primary cause. In many cases the cause remains unclear. It is a type of cardiomyopathy, a group of diseases that primarily affects the heart muscle. The diagnosis may be supported by an electrocardiogram, chest X-ray, or echocardiogram.

In those with heart failure treatment may include medications in the ACE inhibitor, beta blocker, and diuretic families. A low salt diet may also be helpful. In those with certain types of irregular heartbeat, blood thinners or an implantable cardioverter defibrillator may be recommended. If other measures are not effective a heart transplant may be an option in some.

About 1 per 2,500 people are affected. It occurs more frequently in men than women. Onset is most often in middle age. Five-year survival rate is about 50%. It can also occur in children and is the most common type of cardiomyopathy in this age group.

Signs and symptoms presented by the occurrence of alcoholic cardiomyopathy are the result of the heart failing and usually occur after the disease has progressed to an advanced stage. Therefore, the symptoms have a lot in common with other forms of cardiomyopathy. These symptoms can include the following:

- Ankle, feet, and leg swelling (edema)

- Overall swelling

- Loss of appetite

- Shortness of breath (dyspnea), especially with activity

- Breathing difficulty while lying down

- Fatigue, weakness, faintness

- Decreased alertness or concentration

- Cough containing mucus, or pink, frothy material

- Decreased urine output (oliguria)

- Need to urinate at night (nocturia)

- Heart palpitations (irregular heart beat)

- Rapid pulse (tachycardia)

Abnormal heart sounds, murmurs, ECG abnormalities, and enlarged heart on chest x-ray may lead to the diagnosis. Echocardiogram abnormalities and cardiac catheterization or angiogram to rule out coronary artery blockages, along with a history of alcohol abuse can confirm the diagnosis.

Heart problems are very important in people with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) as Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) patients with left ventricular dysfunction have a median survival of 101 days as compared to 472 days in AIDS patients with healthy hearts. HIV is a major cause of cardiomyopathy (problems with the heart muscle that reduce the efficiency with which the heart pumps blood). The most common type of HIV induced cardiomyopathy is dilated cardiomyopathy also known as eccentric ventricular hypertrophy which leads to impaired contraction of the ventricles due to volume overload. The annual incidence of HIV associated dilated cardiomyopathy was 15.9/1000 before the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). However, in 2014, a study found that 17.6% of HIV patients have dilated cardiomyopathy (176/1000) meaning the incidence has greatly increased.

Jervell and Lange-Nielsen syndrome (JLNS) is a type of long QT syndrome associated with severe, bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Long QT syndrome causes the cardiac muscle to take longer than usual to recharge between beats. If untreated, the irregular heartbeats, called arrhythmias, can lead to fainting, seizures, or sudden death. It was first described by Anton Jervell and Fred Lange-Nielsen in 1957.

Dilated cardiomyopathy can be due to pericardial effusion or infective endocarditis, especially in intravenous drug users which are common in the HIV population. However, the most researched cause of cardiomyopathy is myocarditis (myocardial inflammation and infection) caused by HIV-1, which the main subtype of HIV (the other being HIV-2), with greater likelihood of transmission and shorter period between infection and illness. HIV-1 virions infect cardiomyocytes in patches but there is no direct correlation between viral infection and dysfunction of cardiomyocytes.

HIV-related cardiomyopathy is often not associated with any specific opportunistic infection, and approximately 40% of patients have not experienced any opportunistic infection before the onset of cardiac symptoms.

Although large vestibular aqueducts are a congenital condition, hearing loss may not be present from birth. Age of diagnosis ranges from infancy to adulthood, and symptoms include fluctuating and sometimes progressive sensorineural hearing loss and disequilibrium.

Mondini dysplasia, also known as Mondini malformation and Mondini defect, is an abnormality of the inner ear that is associated with sensorineural hearing loss.

This deformity was first described in 1791 by Mondini after examining the inner ear of a deaf boy. The Mondini dysplasia describes a cochlea with incomplete partitioning and a reduced number of turns, an enlarged vestibular aqueduct and a dilated vestibule. A normal cochlea has two and a half turns, a cochlea with Mondini dysplasia has one and a half turns; the basal turns being normally formed with a dilated or cystic apical turn to the cochlear. The hearing loss can deteriorate over time either gradually or in a step-wise fashion, or may be profound from birth.

Hearing loss associated with Mondini dysplasia may first become manifest in childhood or early adult life. Some children may pass newborn hearing screen to lose hearing in infancy but others present with a hearing loss at birth. Hearing loss is often progressive and because of the associated widened vestibular aqueduct may progress in a step-wise fashion associated with minor head trauma. Vestibular function is also often affected. While the hearing loss is sensorineural a conductive element may exist probably because of the third window effect of the widened vestibular aqueduct. The Mondini dysplasia can occur in cases of Pendred Syndrome and Branchio-oto-renal syndrome and in other syndromes, but can occur in non-syndromic deafness.

Individuals with Treacher Collins syndrome often have both cleft palate and hearing loss, in addition to other disabilities. Hearing loss is often secondary to absent, small, or unusually formed ears (microtia), and commonly results from malformations of the middle ear. Researchers have found that most patients with Treacher Collins syndrome have symmetric external ear canal abnormalities and symmetrically dysmorphic or absent ossicles in the middle ear space. Inner ear structure is largely normal. Most patients show a moderate hearing impairment or greater, and the type of loss is generally a conductive hearing loss. Patients with Treacher Collins syndrome exhibit hearing losses similar to those of patients with malformed or missing ossicles (Pron "et al.", 1993).

Many people with long QT syndrome have no signs or symptoms.

Some people may experience the following symptoms:

- Fainting (or syncope). This may occur when the patient is emotionally or physically stressed. It is unusual in QT syndrome to have any signs before the person actually faints.

- Seizures

- Sudden death. If there is sudden death, and doctors suspect long QT syndrome as the cause, they may recommend that the family members of the deceased get tested for the disease.

Hearing loss with craniofacial syndromes is a common occurrence. Many of these multianomaly disorders involve structural malformations of the outer or middle ear, making a significant hearing loss highly likely.

Coxsackieviruses-induced cardiomyopathy are positive-stranded RNA viruses in picornavirus family and the genus enterovirus, acute enterovirus infections such as Coxsackievirus B3 have been identified as the cause of virally induced acute myocarditis, resulting in dilated cardiomyopathy. Dilated cardiomyopathy in humans can be caused by multiple factors including hereditary defects in the cytoskeletal protein dystrophin in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients). A heart that undergoes dilated cardiomyopathy shows unique enlargement of ventricles, and thinning of the ventricular wall that may lead to heart failure. In addition to the genetic defects in dystrophin or other cytoskeletal proteins, a subset of dilated cardiomyopathy is linked to enteroviral infection in the heart, especially coxsackievirus B. Enterovirus infections are responsible for about 30% of the cases of acquired dilated cardiomyopathy in humans.

Nonsyndromic deafness is hearing loss that is not associated with other signs and symptoms. In contrast, syndromic deafness involves hearing loss that occurs with abnormalities in other parts of the body. Genetic changes are related to the following types of nonsyndromic deafness.

- DFNA: nonsyndromic deafness, autosomal dominant

- DFNB: nonsyndromic deafness, autosomal recessive

- DFNX: nonsyndromic deafness, X-linked

- nonsyndromic deafness, mitochondrial

Each type is numbered in the order in which it was described. For example, DFNA1 was the first described autosomal dominant type of nonsyndromic deafness. Mitochondrial nonsyndromic deafness involves changes to the small amount of DNA found in mitochondria, the energy-producing centers within cells.

Most forms of nonsyndromic deafness are associated with permanent hearing loss caused by damage to structures in the inner ear. The inner ear consists of three parts: a snail-shaped structure called the cochlea that helps process sound, nerves that send information from the cochlea to the brain, and structures involved with balance. Loss of hearing caused by changes in the inner ear is called sensorineural deafness. Hearing loss that results from changes in the middle ear is called conductive hearing loss. The middle ear contains three tiny bones that help transfer sound from the eardrum to the inner ear. Some forms of nonsyndromic deafness involve changes in both the inner ear and the middle ear; this combination is called mixed hearing loss.

The severity of hearing loss varies and can change over time. It can affect one ear (unilateral) or both ears (bilateral). Degrees of hearing loss range from mild (difficulty understanding soft speech) to profound (inability to hear even very loud noises). The loss may be stable, or it may progress as a person gets older. Particular types of nonsyndromic deafness often show distinctive patterns of hearing loss. For example, the loss may be more pronounced at high, middle, or low tones.

Nonsyndromic deafness can occur at any age. Hearing loss that is present before a child learns to speak is classified as prelingual or congenital. Hearing loss that occurs after the development of speech is classified as postlingual.

A triad of hypokalemic periodic paralysis, potentially fatal cardiac ventricular ectopy and characteristic physical features is known as Anderson-Tawil Syndrome. It affects the heart, symptoms are a disruption in the rhythm of the heart's lower chambers (ventricular arrhythmia) in addition to the symptoms of long QT syndrome. There are also physical abnormalities associated with Andersen–Tawil syndrome, these typically affect the head, face, and limbs. These features often include an unusually small lower jaw (micrognathia), low-set ears, and an abnormal curvature of the fingers called clinodactyly. Furthermore it causes symptoms which are similar to Long QT syndrome, which Andersen's is also known as. Long QT syndrome, a hereditary disorder that usually affects children or young adults, slows the signal that causes the ventricles to contract. Another electrical signal problem, atrial flutter, happens when a single electrical wave circulates rapidly in the atrium, causing a very fast but steady heartbeat. Heart block involves weak or improperly conducted electrical signals from the upper chambers that can't make it to the lower chambers, causing the heart to beat too slowly. These conditions can put you at risk for cardiac arrest. Treatment might involve medication, ablation, or an implanted device to correct the misfiring, such as a pacemaker or defibrillator. Here are some common physical abnormalities, but keep in mind these do vary (in severity) between each patient:

Some more severe issues can be caused via the potassium channelopathy. These include paralysis (mostly temporary and can last from several seconds to several minutes), inability to perform long distance/interval exercises and sudden exhaustion- although this can be a sign of cardiac arrhythmia- which should be immeditaley checked out by a GP, whether you have been diagnosed with ATS or not.

The vestibular aqueduct acts as a canal between the inner ear and the cranial cavity. Running through it is a tube called the endolymphatic duct, which normally carries a fluid called endolymph from the inner ear to the endolymphatic sac in the cranial cavity. When the endolymphatic duct and sac are larger than normal, as is the case in large vestibular aqueduct syndrome, endolymph is allowed to travel back from the endolymphatic sac into the inner ear. This often results fluctuations in hearing levels. Enlarged vestibular aqueducts often occur with other inner ear development problems, such as cochlear deformities. Enlarged vestibular aqueducts are part of the classic Mondini deformity. Enlarged vestibular aqueducts with enlarged endolymphatic sacs occur in Pendred syndrome which is caused by a defect on chromosome 7q31.. Enlarged vestibular aqueducts can also occur in Branchio-oto-renal syndrome, CHARGE syndrome and Renal Tubular Acidosis.

Enlarged vestibular aqueducts can be bilateral or unilateral.

Hearing loss caused by large vestibular aqueduct syndrome is not inevitable, although people with the syndrome are at a much higher risk of developing hearing loss than the general population. Hearing loss is very likely.

JLNS patients with "KCNQ1" mutations are particularly prone to pathological lengthening of the QT interval, which predisposes them to episodes of "torsades de pointes" and sudden cardiac death. In this context, if the patient has had syncopal episodes or history of cardiac arrest, an implantable cardiac defibrillator should be used in addition to a beta blocker such as propranolol.

The hearing loss of Pendred syndrome is often, although not always, present from birth, and language acquisition may be a significant problem if deafness is severe in childhood. The hearing loss typically worsens over the years, and progression can be step-wise and related to minor head trauma. In some cases, language development worsens after head injury, demonstrating that the inner ear is sensitive to trauma in Pendred syndrome; this is as a consequence of the widened vestibular aqueducts usual in this syndrome. Vestibular function varies in Pendred syndrome and vertigo can be a feature of minor head trauma. A goitre is present in 75% of all cases.

Only 10 to 15 percent of the cases diagnosed as SSHL have an identifiable cause. Most cases are classified as idiopathic, also called sudden idiopathic hearing loss (SIHL) and idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSHL or ISSNHL) The majority of evidence points to some type of inflammation in the inner ear as the most common cause of SSNHL.

- Viral - The swelling may be due to a virus. A herpes type virus is believed to be the most common cause of sudden sensorineural hearing loss. The herpes virus lays dormant in our bodies and reactivates for an unknown reason.

- Vascular ischemia of the inner ear or cranial nerve VIII (CN8)

- Perilymph fistula, usually due to a rupture of the round or oval windows and the leakage of perilymph. The patient will usually also experience vertigo or imbalance. A history of trauma is usually present and changes to hearing or vertigo occur with alteration in intracranial pressure such as with straining; lifting, blowing etc.

- Autoimmune - can be due to an autoimmune illness such as systemic lupus erythematosus, granulomatosis with polyangiitis

Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is a condition which affects repolarization of the heart after a heartbeat. This results in an increased risk of an irregular heartbeat which can result in fainting, drowning, or sudden death. These episodes can be triggered by exercise or stress. Other associated symptoms may include hearing loss.

Long QT syndrome may be present at birth or develop later in life. The inherited form may occur by itself or as part of larger genetic disorder. Onset later in life may result from certain medications, low blood potassium, low blood calcium, or heart failure. Medications that are implicated include certain antiarrhythmic, antibiotics, and antipsychotics. Diagnosis is based on an electrocardiogram (EKG) finding a corrected QT interval of greater than 440 to 500 milliseconds together with clinical findings.

Management may include avoiding strenuous exercise, getting sufficient potassium in the diet, the use of beta blockers, or a implantable cardiac defibrillator. Without treatment there is a 50%, 10 year risk of death, for the inherited versions. With treatment this decreases to less than 1% over 20 years.

Long QT syndrome is estimated to affect 1 in 7,000 people. Females are affected more often than males. Most people with the condition develop symptoms before they are 40 years old. It is a relatively common cause of sudden death along with Brugada syndrome and arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia. In the United States it results in about 3,500 deaths a year. The condition was first clearly described in 1957.

SSHL is diagnosed via pure tone audiometry. If the test shows a loss of at least 30db in three adjacent frequencies, the hearing loss is diagnosed as SSHL. For example, a hearing loss of 30db would make conversational speech sound more like a whisper.