Mind your hear loss
Hearing is precious and you must protect it. Take good care of your ears… To hear for life, listen with care. With the technological advancement in electronics many listening tools like smart phones, tabs and personal entertainment devices have become ubiquitous but we miss the habit of listening safe sounds that need to be adopted to mitigate the risk of hearing loss……
By Dr Ravi Meher
Many common causes of hearing loss can be prevented, including hearing loss caused by exposure to loud sounds. Safe listening can mitigate the risk of hearing loss associated with recreational sound exposure.”
The World Hearing Day is observed every year on March 3rd to raise awareness on ways of preventing deafness and hearing loss and promoting ear and hearing care across the world. This was started in 2013 and this year is the 10th World Hearing day. WHO hosts this annual World Hearing Day event at its headquarters in Geneva and people across the world celebrate it by organizing various IEC (Information, Education and Communication) activities.
On this day the WHO highlights the importance of safe listening as a means of maintaining good hearing across the life course. This year we have a very important theme of World Hearing day 2022 that is to hear for life, listen with care.
Hearing loss is the most common sensory deficit in humans today. As per WHO estimates in India, there are approximately 63 million people, who are suffering from Significant Auditory Impairment; this places the estimated prevalence at 6.3% in Indian population. As per NSSO survey, currently there are 291 persons per one lakh population who are suffering from severe to profound hearing loss (NSSO, 2001). Of these, a large percentage is children between the ages of 0 to 14 years.
With such a large number of hearing impaired young Indians, it amounts to a severe loss of productivity, both physical and economic. An even larger percentage of our population suffers from milder degrees of hearing loss and unilateral (one sided) hearing loss.
According to WHO, it is possible to have good hearing across the life course through ear and hearing care. As there is an increase in use of such devices by the younger generation, there is also a parallel increase in incidence of hearing loss. Our ears have delicate hair cells which transform the sound energy into electrical energy in the brain. These hair cells are sensitive to loud intensity sounds which are above the normal conversation levels.
The actual organ of hearing is the cochlea in the inner ear. The cochlea receives sound waves and passes them on to the brain. This works smoothly in people with normal hearing.
The ears receive sound waves and change them into signals which are sent along nerves to the brain. The brain then analyzes the signals, recognizes them as sounds and interprets them: as soft music, for instance, or as loud honking or human voices.
Sound waves are created when an object moves, for example when a guitar string or loudspeaker membrane vibrates. Whether we hear a sound depends both on the power of the sound as well as on the frequency of the vibration.
When somebody is using an earphone to listen to music, say in a metro or bus, the background noise will require the user to raise the volume of the device to dangerously high level, in order to overcome the background noise of the metro or bus engine enough to damage the delicate hair cells in the inner ear.
The damage is directly proportional to the intensity and duration of the exposure. It is now well known that sound exposure of more than 90 dB (decibel which comes from “deci” meaning one tenth) for 8 hours a day is dangerous and can lead to permanent hearing loss. If the intensity is increased by just 5 dB the exposure duration which is dangerous decreases to half. That means that for a sound of 95 dB, exposure of only 4 hours a day is sufficient to cause the inner ear damage and if the sound is 100 dB then the duration decreases to 1- 1/2 hours only. And a sound of 105 dB can damage your hearing if exposed for just 15 minutes in a week.
The sound level produced by an mp3 player can reach up to 110 dB at maximum. This is even more relevant after Covid-19 when everyone including students is using headphones for long duration for online classes and webinars at an intensity which can harm the ears. The initial symptom in noise induced hearing loss is ear block sensation or ringing sensation in the ears is often overlooked. Then there is high frequency hearing loss which is usually asymptomatic and later on there is involvement of speech frequency when the patient becomes symptomatic. It can be easily diagnosed by audiometry which shows a classical dip in bone conduction at 4 kilohertz.
The hearing loss is irreversible and cannot be improved with any medication. The noise induced hearing loss because of use of these personal entertainment devices is the new epidemic which is going to increase further.
So following are the ways by which you can protect your hearing?
-Turn down the volume of the music player. If you are not able to hear external noise then it is too loud. Also it is loud if the person who is sitting next to you is able to hear the music.
-To enjoy the music safely you must not hear it at more than 60 % of the maximum volume for a duration of not more than 60 minutes a day.
– Use of good quality noise cancelling muff-type headphones is better than ear bud style earphones. The muff type of headphones allows one to listen to music at lower volume as it prevents the background noise interference.
-Take regular breaks from using the headphones. This gives time for the ear to recover from any insult and prevent the permanent damage.
-If you develop ringing sensation in the ear or have decreased hearing acuity then please see an ENT doctor.
-Do not stand close to loudspeakers during any event.
-Do not use ear buds to clean the ears as it can push the wax deep inside the canal and can also harm the ear.
-Use earplugs while bursting loud crackers. 9. If you have ear ache/discharge consult an ENT surgeon. Do not ignore any ear complaints.
-Avoid ototoxic drugs.
(The author is Director Professor, Department of ENT, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi)