Musicians constitute a population at risk of hearing loss. Arnaud Coez, president of the French Audiology Society, brings his knowledge to the latest UNESCO Sound Week.
- The risk of hearing loss is surely the one that is most closely linked to musical practice.
- Musicians playing rock music, for example, are more exposed to risks related to their hearing health.
- The wish of Arnaud Coez, president of the French society of audiology, would be for the general population to be able, in the same way as the weather and degrees Celsius, to gauge the intensity of decibels and sound. According to him, prevention remains the best way to combat hearing problems.
“The hearing of musicians is doing well because they are people who are over-trained, who enjoy playing a musical instrument which constitutes a cognitive reserve, which often allows them to age well.” It is with this argument that the president of the SFA begins before continuing by explaining that: “Unfortunately, we only see music as an art and we completely obscure the physical phenomenon, which is behind it and which is “the emission of sound”. The sound is a bit of a poor relation, we don’t really realize it…”
Make the decibel accessible in the same way as the weather
His wish ? “Rmake the decibel as easy to use as the degree celsius! As much as you know how to dress today when you are told that it is -6 degrees in Paris for example, you do not necessarily know how to behave when there are 80 decibels near a speaker.”
“There is a lot of awareness to be raised among the general population… The greater the hearing loss, the more complicated and difficult things are to put in place.”
“The population of musicians is a population at risk”
Indeed, even if musicians are overtrained there is no zero risk for their hearing which is very regularly subjected to numerous efforts: “We know that the population of musicians is a population at risk. That is to say, it is estimated that in the French population 10% have hearing loss, but for a classical musician the figures rise to 30% and for a population who plays more “rock” music the figures can go up to 60%.”
Unfortunately, to date, there is no curative treatment, hence the importance of prevention: ”A certain number of solutions and access to care is entirely possible for people who have hearing loss linked to their musical practices. Initially, probably, with a hearing aid which is very easy to use and which can largely correct the audibility defect. It is all the easier for a musician because he is trained and has discrimination abilities in intensity, frequency and time, which are much better than the general population.”
When the hearing loss is too significant, a cochlear implant solution could make it possible, after a surgical procedure and the installation of an electrode holder in the cochlea, to restore a completely satisfactory sound perception which allows the person to regain speech intelligibility.
“Today, there are even people who practice music while being implanted”, says audiologist and hearing enthusiast, Arnaud Coez.
