We all accept that noise is part of our everyday lives, however, if noise in a workplace reaches a certain level, the employer has a duty, by law, to protect their employees’ hearing.

We can prevent hearing loss caused by work but once your hearing has gone, it won’t come back.

It is estimated there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who suffer Industrial Deafness due to harmful levels of noise at work.

What are the limits?

Noise levels are measured in decibels and to give you an idea of some average decibel measurements, you could expect to hear the following:

Bedroom or quiet living room — 40dBA
Normal conversation — 60dBA
Vacuum cleaner (10ft) — 70dBA
Food blender (2ft) or Pneumatic drill (50ft) — 80dBA
Heavy truck or motorbike (25ft) — 90dBA
Chain saw — 110dBA

If noise levels reach an average of 80dBA your employer must:

Make every effort to reduce noise levels by replacing/modifying /maintaining equipment and machinery.
Explain the risks and explain how to protect your hearing.
Provide PPE (Personal Protective Equipment).

If noise levels reach an average of 85dBA your employer must:

Comply with all of the above.
Enforce the compulsory wearing of hearing protection.
Clearly mark hearing protection zones.

As a general rule of thumb, if you have to raise your voice to communicate with colleagues over a distance of 3 feet then the noise levels are likely to be in excess of 85dBA. If you have to shout then the noise levels are in excess of 90dBA.

Have you been affected?

Most people know when an accident has occurred at work because of the dramatic effects and impacts they can impose, but very few employees are aware of industrial ‘illnesses’ – such as ‘industrial deafness’. This is because the damage being done to the hearing happens very slowly, over a long period of time. As a result, the symptoms go unnoticed in the early stages, manifesting themselves after a prolonged period, when you are then more likely to put the cause of your hearing problems down to the ageing process. You may never be aware that your symptoms are due to your working environment.

Do you work using noisy machinery or power tools?

Do you work in a noisy industry, such as construction, road repair, demolition, woodworking, plastics processing, engineering, textiles, general fabrication, forging, pressing or stamping, paper or board making, foundries, canning or bottling, mining, or one of many other similar industries?
Are there noises because of impacts? (e.g. hammering, drop forging, pneumatic impact tools etc), explosive sources such as cartridge-operated tools or guns?

If you have worked in what you consider to be a noisy environment, without adequate hearing protection, the chances are you may have been affected and are suffering from some degree of Industrial Deafness (Noise Induced Hearing Loss).

The following are common signs that your hearing has already started to suffer:

You may find that conversation starts to become difficult, especially if there is any background noise.
You may find it difficult to use the telephone.
Your family may complain that you set the television volume too high.
You may suffer from tinnitus (ringing in the ear)

What you should do next

The only way to determine if you’ve been affected by noise is to have a hearing test.

If you are still working in a noisy environment the first thing you and your employer should do is ensure you are doing as much as possible to prevent any further damage to your hearing. By law, your employer should find out the levels of the noise that you are exposed to and assess the risk to your hearing.

Depending on the severity of the noise your employer must comply with the following:

Control the noise exposure by ‘engineering’ it out.  They may fit a silencer, or put in screens or barriers.
Change the layout of your working environment or the way you work.  They must not rely on hearing protectors alone.
They should provide you with the quietest machinery that will do the job.
Provide you with a choice of adequate hearing protection.
Send you for regular hearing checks.
Provide you with correct training and information.
Consult you and your representatives.
Whilst the onus is on the employer to protect your hearing, you should do all you can to remain safe.

You should always:

Co-operate with your employer.
Wear any hearing protection that you are given.
Look after your hearing protection.
Report any problems immediately.

You should never remove hearing protection in an Ear Protection Zone even for short periods. Removing protection in an environment with 107dBA for just one minute would give a noise dose equal to the recommended level of 80dBA for 8 hours.

Hearing Loss Compensation?

If your employer has exposed you to excessive noise levels, and your hearing has been damaged as a result, you may be entitled to compensation. Many thousands of innocent victims have already received substantial awards for the permanent damage they have sustained. Typically, awards in noise induced deafness claims range from £3,000 to £20,000.

Claiming what is owed to you is a simple process and can be administered under the terms of a risk free ‘No-win, No-Fee’ agreement with a solicitor. However, you only get one chance to make a claim for noise induced hearing loss, so when you do, you need to make sure you have the support of professionals who have the right experience and know-how to guide you through the process and maximize the award you’ll receive.

Atrium Legal Services

Atrium are a great company to handle an industrial hearing loss claim. You can contact them through their website:

www.atriumlegal.com

The Oticon Focus on People Awards recognize outstanding individuals with hearing loss who show that hearing loss does not limit a person’s ability to succeed, contribute and inspire.

Not that I am biased or anything but I have voted for Samantha in the Student section and Sarah in the Advocacy section.

I wrote about Samantha’s book a little while ago, it’s an amazing piece of work that inspires as well as teaches. I’ve been reading Sarah’s SpeakUpLibrarian blog for years now, it’s an informative account of the struggles with hearing loss and – hope Sarah doesn’t mind me saying this – I think it has helped Sarah cope with her own hearing loss. Sarah doesn’t just blog, she is also the Social Chair of the Association of Late Deafened Adults Chicago.

Both are doing great work to educate and raise awareness of hearing issues – give them your vote!

This is a guest article by Patrick Frueler.

Patrick is the founder of Audicus. Audicus is a new, simple and affordable way of buying great quality hearing aids that fit.

While hearing loss is often attributed to natural ageing or the iPod generation’s exposure to loud music, hearing impairment due to noise at work is particularly prevalent. Have you ever seen a fire truck blasting through with full sirens and asked yourself how on earth those firefighters manage to stay sound? Or construction workers wielding a sledge hammer? Or military personnel in combat areas?

Hearing Loss Incidence

Approximately 30 million workers in the US are exposed to hazardous noise on the job. Audicus tried to compile the available data on the incidence of hearing loss in occupations where the average noise levels are above the 90dB safety limit – and the numbers were astounding.  In manufacturing or even agriculture, workers are at least three times as likely to experience hearing loss when they are 50 years old– in other industries it’s up to six times!

Mind those Sirens, Bomb blasts and Squealing Pigs

In mining and construction, 2 out of 3 workers will experience hearing loss by the time they are 50. Most of it is due to the use of heavy equipment (think jackhammers and heavy drills), the drilling of rock and the confined work environment. What is particularly alarming is that the ability to hear well is essential to maintaining standards of safety – which, if jeopardized, can put workers in such extreme environments in a life threatening situation.

Personnel in the armed forces also face threatening noise levels, especially those in active duty: a recent study by the Deafness Research Foundation showed that more than 65% of returning combat troops from Afghanistan suffer from noise-induced hearing loss or sustained acoustic trauma.

Farmers are three times as likely to exhibit hearing loss as the average American. Exposure to damaging sounds starts at a relatively young age, such with the squealing of pigs, tractors, combines, grain dryers, chain saws and other equipment and tools.

For firefighters, hearing loss is the second most common work related ailment, mostly due to exposure from sirens, machinery and other tools.

One of the largest employers in the US, the manufacturing sector is also one of the noisiest. Therefore it is responsible for the highest number of occupational hearing loss cases. A study in Michigan showed that more than half of all cases of permanent hearing loss came from manufacturing.

No cure and no support

While substantial efforts were made to encourage the use of hearing protection in these industries, most notably in construction and manufacturing, the results are meager. Construction workers spend on average 70% of their time in hazardous noise environments yet they protect their ears less than 30% of the time. The incidence of hearing loss among military personnel has remained largely unchanged since the 1980s.

Noise induced hearing loss is permanent and irreversible; once you have it, you can only assist it with a hearing aid. The problem there is that many of those employed in “noisy” occupations belong to the lower income brackets and simply don’t have the means to finance the $3,000 to $7,000 for a pair of hearing aids. What is worse is that this relationship backfires into a spiral, where workers become less productive due to their untreated hearing impairment and face lower salaries and wages.

Military personnel are currently the only ones seeing a real and effective form of government subsidy for hearing aids via the Veterans Affairs (VA).  The rest can only rely on very limited support through their industry trade bodies (e.g. $1,000 every 3 years from the New York transit authority) and some private insurance schemes. In fact, 60-70% of all yearly hearing aids expenditures are paid out of pocket by the patient!

While Audicus is trying to make hearing technology more accessible and affordable, there is still a long way to go.

A young deaf girl learns sign language to try and find herself, but instead becomes caught between the deaf and hearing worlds

My Song is the debut drama from C&B Films, a new production company headed by director William Mager and scriptwriter Charlie Swinbourne, aiming to tell stories that express deaf culture in an original, compelling way.

Starring Lara Steward, My Song is a coming of age story which follows Ellen, a young deaf girl stuck in the middle of the deaf and hearing worlds.

Feeling as if she doesn’t fit in, Ellen learns sign language, attempting to enter the deaf world by taking part in a sign song competition in London.

You can find out more about this film or watch some of the other excellent shorts on the British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust website.

I hate waiting rooms, they make me nervous. Doctor surgeries, opticians, dentists, business foyers, hospital waiting rooms – they’re all the same: large rooms full of people with lots of potential for embarrassing hearing mistakes.

Waiting rooms are either incredibly noisy, full of chatter, kids playing and parents shouting; or they are deathly silent with no-one uttering a word. I’m not sure which is better.

When it’s really noisy I have basically no chance of hearing when I’m called for whatever appointment I’m waiting for. But then at least I have an excuse, “Sorry, so noisy in here, couldn’t hear you“.

When it’s quiet it’s probably worse as everyone is bored and is watching everyone else as they have nothing better to do. Plus, the caller doesn’t call so loud because there isn’t so much noise to shout over. In the past, many years ago, someone called out a name (I had no idea if it was mine) and I waited for about ten seconds and didn’t see anyone else moving, so I got up. That could’ve gone really, really wrong.

It’s usually while I’m sat in waiting rooms that I’m reminded how much I don’t hear. I always try and sit as close to where the caller is going to be as possible and even then I still sometimes don’t manage to pick up the name being called and yet someone from the other side of the room – waaaaay over there – gets up for their appointment. Wow, my hearing is bad.

You’re probably wondering why I don’t just tell someone about my hearing loss? I usually do. But even then the caller might not realise how much louder they need to go, or they can’t be bothered, or they forget. I’m always on edge.

I went to an NHS Audiology department some years ago and was pretty shocked to find that even though they had a huge waiting room they were calling people for appointments by shouting at them from the corner of the room. I mean… c’mon.

Another thing I hate about being in waiting rooms is when my appointment time has passed and I start wondering if I’ve actually been called and I didn’t hear. Are they just running late or should I go and see if I was called?

It would be great if waiting rooms could have a screen up and print the name of the person being called. Or maybe send a text message to my phone. Anything to make the experience a bit less stressful really.

Charles Limb is a surgeon who performs cochlear implantation, he is also a musician. In this 15-minuted TED talk he discusses how we hear and experience speech and music in very different ways, demonstrates how music sounds to a cochlear implant wearer and talks about other problems with CIs. Charles’ goal in his work is to bring the beauty back into sound for CI wearers, not just to give them functional speech recognition but to have CIs that are so perfect that people can enjoy the warmth, beauty and magic of music.

There have been two bits of hearing-related news regarding the mighty Apple recently:
 they’ve patented a hearing aid social network and they’re working with big-name hearing aid manufacturers to create “Made For iPhone” hearing aids.

I’m really hoping that Apple is planning to make a big splash in the hearing industry, it’ll be a huge sea-change for us hearing aid wearers if they do. I doubt it’ll result in cheaper hearing aids, Apple always sell premium products at premium prices and it won’t result in a massive leap in hearing aid performance (manufacturers/scientists are already doing an awesome job).

If Apple do get serious about the hearing industry then I think two things will change:

Hearing aids will instantly become cool

People don’t just like Apple’s products, they love them. Any time Apple make an announcement about a new product or upgrade the Internet lights up with the news, it is huge, everyone wants to know what they are making next. If Apple were to produce their own aid or at least heavily promote their collaboration with big-name aid manufacturers then hearing aids will go mainstream overnight, they will become cool and the stigma around wearing them will disappear in a flash.

There will be massive innovation in technology

Apple are renowned for innovating, i they turn the hearing aid industry on its head in the same way as they did to the music industry with the iPod and the download Store, and personal computing with the iPad then we are going to see massive changes in the way we use our aids.

I am ridiculously excited about the Apple/hearing news, if Apple are serious about the industry then we are in for a real treat.

This video shows how the BBC go about adding subtitles to their pre-recorded and live shows.

I found this video on I look so I can hear.

This is a great video. It features 7 year-old Samantha showing a book that she made, the book is about her hearing aid and FM system and shows how she uses it in her class at school. I think this would make a great little guide for other kids (and adults too) who aren’t sure what a FM system can do for them. Also, love Samantha’s confidence and attitude towards her hearing aids, wish I was that comfortable with my aids when I was at school.

Reward your Audiologist!

Europe’s top award for hearing professionals is back. Audiologist of the Year 2011 is a chance for hearing patients to celebrate the skills of professionals across the continent.

Now in its fourth year, the respected award encourages nominations for professionals who excel in their duties and is a chance for patients to shout about their own audiologist.

Reward and recognise your audiologist by telling us just what makes them so special. We don’t just want to know they are good. We want to know why they are the best.

Last year we received many heart warming and inspirational tales so make sure you tell us how your audiologist excels. Whatever your personal story, we want to hear how your hearing care professional goes above and beyond the call of duty to help.

You both win!

By voting, you don’t just give your audiologist the chance to win, you will also be in the running to pick up a prize. The winning nominee receives a £250 cash prize and electrical goods to the value of £200. You also get to share in the success, kudos and recognition of the winner.

Ask your audiologist for further details or look out for information in their practice.

The official site for the competition is http://www.audiologistoftheyear.eu/