Acquired hearing loss due to chemotherapy or noise exposure is a major health problem, and cisplatin chemotherapy often causes permanent hearing loss in cancer patients. However, there are no FDA-approved drugs for the treatment or prevention of cisplatin- or noise-induced hearing loss. In one aspect, use of compounds as an active agent to treat a hearing impairment and to prevent a hearing impairment, and methods of treating and/or preventing hearing impairments or disorders using the compositions are disclosed. This abstract is intended as a scanning tool for purposes of searching in the particular art and is not intended to be limiting of the present invention.