"To Protect and Conserve"
By Morgan Saffari (Contributing writer for Hearing Products Report)

A Synopsis

There are an estimated 28 million Americans with hearing loss and approximately one third of these hearing losses can be attributed to noise exposure. With the increased use of personal listening devices and cell phones combined with an already noisy world, this number is going to increase in the years to come unless consumers and audiologists take a more active approach in protecting hearing.

Hearing care professionals, particularly audiologists, must stress the importance of hearing conservation to their patients. Additionally, audiologists must make available to the public hearing conservation products to help patients save their hearing.

Baby Boomers are leading the way toward hearing protection. Many boomers have already damaged their hearing through exposure to loud music and other damaging noises and are realizing the importance of preserving their remaining hearing. The stigma attached to wearing hearing aids does not seem to carry over to wearing hearing protection; in general the public is open to wearing hearing protection.

Hearing conservation is a concern in many recreational and occupational arenas. Hearing protection devices have been designed for musicians, motor sports and racing drivers and aficionados, hunters, shooters, pilots, law enforcement officers, military personnel, and those in communications to name a few.

Personal listening devices (MP3 players, iPods, etch) have become increasingly popular in recent years. Unfortunately, the increase in their popularity and use has come with an increase in the potential for causing a noise induced hearing loss when their volume is "cranked up." The listening devices have nothing on them to prevent their user from listening to the sound at a level that is loud enough to damage hearing.

In the music industry, particularly with the advent of bright colors and custom artwork on devices, the trend is to recognize hearing protection as "cool" and "hip" items to wear.

Musicians can utilize monitors to eliminate the need for floor wedge speakers on their stage. There are devices available from a number of manufacturers with one, two, or three drivers in them to meet performers' needs for sound quality while keeping budget in mind. These devices deliver excellent sound quality to the user's ears while they protect the hearing by blocking out damaging levels of sound.

For concert goers and musicians, there are passive filtering devices built into custom ear pieces offering a flat response (so they don't alter sound characteristics) 9, 15, or 25dB of hearing protection. There are also universal fit devices using the same filtering capabilities. However, customization typically results in more comfortable and easy to use products than off-the-shelf models. That means they will be more likely to be used and more effective.

Airplane pilots can use custom-fit headset attachments. Those in communications have available one-way isolating custom earpieces for maximum speech intelligibility and a two-way piece with a noise-canceling microphone for environments such as backstage security or broadcasting.

There are earpieces for the iPod and MP3 player type devices that can provide a significant separation of the player's sound from the outside noises. This allows a listener to enjoy their music at a reduced volume setting thus protecting their hearing. Hunters can utilize custom valved earpieces that allow essentially normal hearing of low and mid-intensity sounds, but by an automatic closing of an internal diaphragm, maximum protection for high-impact sounds.

It is an audiologist's responsibility to provide hearing assistance through the fitting of ever increasingly sophisticated and effective hearing instruments. It is also within an audiologist's scope to promote awareness of the effects of damaging noise and the devices available to protect hearing from noise. The public has the task of recognizing the importance of their hearing - before it is already damaged - and protecting their ears. The good news is that there are a myriad of products with this purpose in mind.