Hearing Center: Avoiding Noise Damage

Anyone who has worked for more than a day in any hearing center around the country has met someone who has suffered noise damage. It is one of the most common avoidable forms of sensory damage in the country and many people are completely unaware that it exists. Sure, most people are aware of it in a dim, it-would-never-happen-to-me kind of way. You might have a thought like, "Gosh, I'm going to go deaf," when playing your music too loudly, but you probably don't take it seriously. Few people do until it's too late.

According to statistics, noise is among the leading reasons people incur acquired auditory loss. It is estimated that nearly 30 million people in the U.S. suffer from some type of ear impairment, and many of these people acquired it through entirely avoidable means. Unlike some other forms of auditory loss, unfortunately, this kind of damage is permanent. There are no good treatment methods that can restore your ability to hear once it has occurred. This is why preventing it in the first place is so important. A hearing center may be able to direct you to aids and devices that can make coping with loss easier, but they will not be able to direct you to a cure.

If you're going to avoid exposure to noise damage, you have to know the threshold. Almost everyone is surprised to find how low that threshold is. This is because we live in a culture of noise and high volumes. We've become accustomed to it. But just because we're used to having out stereos blasting and our lawnmowers droning on and on doesn't mean the sounds are any less damaging to our ears. In fact, the less these volumes "bother" you, the more likely it is that you've already suffered some degree of loss.

When you hear about a sound being 70 decibels and another sound being 80 decibels, you are probably wired to believe that there isn't a huge amount of difference between the two. In reality, though, there is a vast gulf. This is because decibels are measured logarithmically, rather than in a set incremental pattern. This means, simply, that 80 decibels isn't just ten even steps up from 70, the way a volume knob works on your television. Instead, 80 decibels is exactly twice as loud as the sound measured at 70. When you consider that continued exposure to sound levels above 85 decibels is enough to damage your ability to hear, it's easy to see how quickly damage can happen. While earplugs are a help, the best thing you can do is avoid those sounds entirely whenever possible.