Hearing loss occupational disease number 2 (after RSI)
The acoustics are bad, everyone is mumbling. Those who are unable to follow conversations often look for the causes outside themselves. While hearing loss is obvious.
Half a word is enough for a good listener. But if you don’t hear well and only catch half a word, you have to put in a lot of effort to understand what is being said. “Now people are quite handy at this,” says Prof. Wouter Dreschler, professor of audiology at the AMC in Amsterdam. “The brain fills in the gaps; you are constantly thinking about what the most logical content will be.”
But that is not without consequences, Dreschler knows. “Filling holes takes a lot of energy. Especially if you don’t realize that you don’t hear very well anymore.” If you know that your ears are no longer in tip-top shape, then if you need to discuss something with a colleague, go to a quiet room with little reverberation. But if you don’t know that, then you don’t come up with the idea to take measures. And then at the end of the day you are exhausted, you have a splitting headache or sleeping problems. “An unrecognized hearing problem can cause all kinds of complaints that you can also get from too much stress,” says Dreschler.
Hidden hearing loss
People attribute their feeling so tired or have other complaints to their age, or to the increasingly hectic modern life, or to the deteriorating acoustics of buildings. Teachers talk about “the youth getting so rowdy,” says Dreschler. “Even when people come to our department for an examination and are therefore prepared that their hearing may have a problem, they often remain in denial. People are sometimes really stunned when I confront them with the results of their hearing test. But when they see the extent of the hearing damage, they can no longer ignore it. That can be very confronting, yes. Especially with musicians. Their world collapses when they cannot distinguish between different tones.”
But how can you not recognize a hearing problem? If you temporarily do not hear well because of a cold, do you notice that right away? “Hearing loss is usually very gradual,” explains Dreschler. “From the age of 30, hearing deteriorates, some faster than others. People get used to it, especially because the brain itself fills in the gaps.” It is not known exactly how many people have hearing loss without knowing it. Dreschler: “Research from more than twenty years ago shows that more than 80,000 people between 55 and 65 years were unaware of a mild form of hearing impairment.
Due to the increasing problem of noise-impaired hearing (in which hearing is damaged by too much noise) and the growth of the population, there will now be many more. And I dare to say that there is a lot of hidden hearing loss behind the figures of people who stop working early because of burnout. Because they themselves do not know that there is something wrong with their hearing and the company doctor does not pay attention to it either.”
Dangerous Occupations
When people start to suffer from hearing loss before the age of 60, it is often because they work in a noisy environment. Permanent hearing damage as a result of long-term exposure to sound is even one of the most commonly reported occupational diseases in the Netherlands, reports the Netherlands Center for Occupational Diseases. It is not only construction workers, road workers and musicians who are exposed to noises that are considered unsafe during their work: on average more than 80 decibels. The list of ‘dangerous professions’ is longer. Truck drivers, for example, often suffer from unilateral hearing damage – on the side of the open window. Police motorcyclists are having a hard time and so are train drivers. ‘Live noise’ causes problems for lifeguards, who are plagued by the reverberation, and for employees of the injection clinic at the child health clinic – after the injection the child on their lap screams straight into their ear. And that a little pig easily produces at least 100 decibels, pig breeders know all too well. Paradoxically, many of these people need their hearing to function properly. What is a musician worth if he can no longer distinguish notes from each other? How safe is a forklift driver who cannot estimate from which side his colleague is hitting? The Working Conditions Act must offer protection to all these professional groups, but apparently this is not always properly observed.
Functional problems
Hearing damage is not always caused by too much noise. It can appear ‘just like that’ and sometimes people who suffer from hearing loss around the age of 40 turn out to be hereditary. Whatever the cause, work and hearing loss rarely go hand in hand. Some people can develop functional problems even with a very minor hearing loss. “For example, pastors, pastors and psychiatrists,” says Dreschler, “cannot afford to ask – after an interlocutor makes an outpouring: ‘Sorry, what are you saying?’ But actually, hearing loss is difficult for everyone. There is hardly any profession or social situation where you don’t have to talk and listen.”
Getting used to a hearing aid
Yet people often wait a long time before having a hearing aid fitted. Nearly 80 percent of the people who are ready for it, postpone the purchase for at least a year. And then there are also people who don’t want it at all. On average, they have been hearing impaired for seven years before they switch to a hearing aid, according to a study by TNS NIPO commissioned by the National Hearing Foundation.
“Too bad,” says Dreschler. “The sooner you start using a hearing aid, the better you can deal with it when it really is impossible to do otherwise. It is important that the auditory nerve, which translates sound from the ear to the brain, remains stimulated. If the nerves do not receive impulses for a long time, then you can no longer get used to a hearing aid.” Dreschler therefore advises people to have their hearing tested if they suspect that their hearing is impaired. “A small and light hearing aid can help at that stage. This is not to say that we can solve all hearing problems. However advanced modern hearing aids are, for some situations, especially at work, there is still no good solution .”
Ringing in the ears: one in ten suffers from it
A shrill whistle, constant squeaking, rattling or crackling: people who suffer from tinnitus hear sounds that do not come from outside. “Ringing in the ears, or tinnitus, is a completely natural phenomenon,” says Niek Versfeld, audiologist at the AMC in Amsterdam. “The ear itself produces sound. Some people hear those sounds much louder than others. The cause of this can usually not be identified.” Sometimes there is a clear explanation, such as prolonged exposure to noise, a blocked ear canal or ear infection. Or it is a side effect of another condition, such as high blood pressure or hearing impairment.
It is estimated that one in ten Dutch people suffer from it to a greater or lesser extent on a daily basis. Symptoms usually start between the ages of 45 and 60. An ear specialist or audiologist can measure how loud the sounds are in the ear and think along with you about a treatment.
Sources):
- Plus Magazine
