- The ARC - California Edition -

Noise and Hearing Loss

Hearing loss among young people has become wide spread these days. There is some debate about specifically what is causing this manmade deafness, and almost all of the finger pointing is aimed at electric guitars or other amplified live music.

Hardly a youngster grows up any more without being bombarded by the outputs of CD decks with their power amplifiers going full blast, or the boom box systems mounted in the kids’ cars. Later they attend concerts where the sound technology make noise-induced hearing loss a particularly acute problem. Movie theaters can also produce audible vibration energy in excess of safe levels.

Portable personal stereos with headphones crank out as much as 110 decibels. But it is not just music that is damaging their hearing. Many powerboats, lawn mowers, and other power tools quite often exceed the 85 decibel threshold considered by experts to be the safe limit.

Since the early 1970s, the rate of hearing loss in the US has jumped. Estimates today are that 10 million Americans are affected by noise-induced hearing loss. One symptom of the times is that many professional rock musicians have now taken to wearing ear plugs. Yes, musicians are wearing ear plugs. Not only do they protect hearing, they also make the music sound better by reducing distortion.

Hearing loss can effect everyone in a family. The volume level of TVs and stereos gradually get increased by any hearing impacted family member. Then all in the family become bombarded by unsafe levels of noise. We can complain or turn the volume down, but what about the hearing of a person that already has a disability and doesn’t recognize the potential damage that may be occurring?

PREVENTION OF HEARING LOSS. 1) Turn it down. 2) Wear earplugs. 3) Limit the time of exposure to noisy environments.

A person with a disability often needs to be taught these prevention strategies.