The World Health Organization predicts that a quarter of the world’s population will suffer from hearing loss within 30 years. A slightly exaggerated estimate for Sébastien Schmerber, head of the ENT department at the CHU Grenoble Alpes and president of the French Association of Otology and Neuro-Otology (AFON), who believes that the trend is still good for increasing problems auditory.
- The reasons put forward by the WHO: a lack of access to care, a lack of qualified medical personnel, too little care for children, a lack of screening and too little vaccination of children.
- For Sébastien Schmerber, the generation of millennials will have more hearing problems because of the lengthening of the lifespan and the significant use of telephones, headphones and audio headsets.
- For the WHO, it is essential to emphasize the early detection of hearing disorders for effective management.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2050, almost 2.5 billion people will suffer from hearing loss. In a report presented on Tuesday 2 February, she describes the reasons for this estimate. In question: a lack of access to care, a lack of qualified medical personnel, too little care for children and a lack of screening. The Organization adds that a lack of access to vaccines is also a factor. “In children, nearly 60% of hearing loss is preventable through measures such as vaccination to prevent rubella and meningitis, improved maternal and neonatal care, and early detection and management of otitis media (inflammatory diseases of the middle ear)”, warns the WHO.
In France, 6 million people suffer from hearing problems
This announcement, somewhat alarmist, is nuanced by the head of the ENT department at the CHU Grenoble Alpes, and president of the French Association of Otology and Neuro-Otology (AFON), Sébastien Schmerber. “To estimate that half of the world’s population will have a hearing problem in 30 years is perhaps a bit excessive, he advances to Why Doctor. In France, for example, we have about 6 million cases. That said, the trend is indeed towards the deterioration of hearing.” According to him, two factors will contribute to the increase in incidence: the increase in life expectancy in most countries, “and we know that deafness is linked to age”, and the lifestyle of the youngest where telephones, earphones and headphones are ubiquitous.
At the hospital, Sébastien Schmerber has not seen an increase in the number of cases in recent years. “It’s too earlyhe believes. I think in ten, with the millennia, it will be more important.” This generation,born with a smartphone in her hands”, strains his ears. “Just look in the street, all the young people are wearing headphones or have headphones in their earshe laments. The age of onset of deafness should start 5 or 10 years earlier and begin around 50 instead of 60.” The poor quality of these devices is particularly to blame. “The bandwidth of a phone is between 300 and 3000 hertz while our hearing spectrum is between 125 and 8000 hertzhe describes. It feels like you can hear normal voices on the phone but not at all, they are compressed.” Result: the bass and treble are muffled and the hearing aid tires more quickly.
Improving screening
This new technology, coupled with the problems of access to care and health personnel as pointed out by the WHO, has an impact on hearing health in the long term. “In each cochlea of the ear there are not many neurons and it is not known whether they regeneratehe explains. This means that, from birth, we have hearing cells that die every day and will not be replaced, which explains why we lose hearing with age. Today, we are poorly equipped to adapt to the current sound world.” In the 1980s, he adds, a study showed that elderly Kenyan populations living in self-sufficiency, on the margins of industrialized society and without noise pollution had much better hearing compared to an elderly person living in a large town.
For the WHO, it is essential to emphasize the early detection of hearing disorders for effective management. “Detection is the first step in combating hearing loss and related ear diseasesshe wrote. Clinical assessment at strategic times in life enables the earliest possible detection of any hearing loss or ear disease. Recent technologies, including accurate and easy-to-use devices, make it possible to screen for ear disease and hearing impairment at any age, in a clinical setting or in the community, with limited means and level of training..” Once the diagnosis is made, it is crucial to intervene quickly. “Medical and surgical treatments can cure most ear diseases and possibly correct the associated hearing loss. However, when the hearing loss is irreversible, rehabilitation can avoid the negative consequences of the hearing loss. There is a range of effective solutions”, she concludes.
.
