Hearing Damage: An Often Underrated Work-related Injury
Consider the industry Safety slogan: 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 eyes, 1 nose—Safety counts. What about the ears? Don’t they count? Hello!
Although noise-induced Hearing Loss Prevention and Hearing Conservation are part of company Safety Training Programs, they might not be given the full attention they deserve. How often is the hearing portion of a Safety session cut short because the sections dealing with more dramatic, visible, physical injuries ran long?
Then again, how many days-long Industry Safety Conferences are held without one single presentation on the potentially dire consequences of excessive sound exposures on hearing, productivity, safety and quality of life? As far as hearing is concerned, is there too much reliance on very basic hearing tests to meet Safety obligations?
Of course, muffled hearing and buzzing ears can hardly compete with visible injuries, such as bleeding cuts, concussions or severed digits and limbs that call for immediate OSHA reporting. Yet, the misery of noise-inflicted hearing damage is preventable! But people have to learn why, where, when and how to protect themselves.
Injuries that do not heal
Unless there is a catastrophic incident, such as a ruptured ear drum due to punctures or impulse sound blasts, noise-related hearing damage progresses slowly and silently. It turns into an invisible and permanent injury that does not heal and that so far cannot be “fixed.”
As the erosion of inner-ear hearing cells and nerve connections worsens, there is no bleeding or pain. The resulting hearing loss is not life-threatening in itself. People are not hauled off the job site because of it, and so it is easy to ignore.
Unrecognized but cumulative damage
In general, people do not appreciate the toxic effects that excessive sound has on their ears and hearing. Employees might not immediately recognize the symptoms that warn of damage and maybe already hearing loss. They may even feel that they “recover” from the ear dullness and tinnitus episodes that often come with overly loud sound exposures. But is there recovery or is this simply a false sense of being OK?
Noise-inflicted damage is cumulative. No insult is ever forgiven or forgotten from the time that we are born to the time that we die. The damage piles up until the system caves, and that can happen suddenly and fast.
Ultimately, ALL work-related injuries count. The goal must become to change the aforementioned slogan to: 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 nose ─ Safety counts. For indeed, it counts in so many ways!
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For industry Safety Training or presentations on Noise-induced Hearing Loss Prevention, please see my website: http://www.hearing-loss-talk.com Or email [email protected]
To learn about ears and hearing, please see my book on hearing loss: What Did You Say? An Unexpected Journey into the World of Hearing Loss, now in its second updated edition. Sharing my story and what I had to learn the hard way.