A noise induced hearing loss is caused by listening to excessively loud noise and causes damage to nerve endings in the cochlea or inner ear. This type of hearing loss is referred to as a noise induced sensory neural hearing loss which mainly damages high pitched sounds of your hearing that affects clarity.
The audiogram or map of a person’s hearing shown on this page displays a typical result of a person with a noise induced hearing loss, caused by excessive noise. The results to the left of diagram represent the lesser damaged low pitched sounds while the results towards the right of the diagram show the extent of damage to the higher tones.
This particular shape is often referred to as a ski sloped loss because of it’s shape. The circles indicate the results of the right ear (normally marked in red ) which although not damaged as much as the left ear, (indicated by blue crosses), would still require the assistance of a prescriptive hearing aid along with the left ear.
In 1973 Parliament passed the “Noise At Work Act” making employers responsible in providing their workers with ear protection. Some companies provide their employees with a regular hearing test as part of their Health and Safety.
Some can develop this type of loss from their lifestyle, for example a lot of people like to go to music festivals or listen to music through headphones etc.
High frequency losses cause difficulty with hearing mainly in background noise and because in most cases this type of hearing loss does very little damage to the low frequencies (a person’s perception of volume) in the early stages, some people aren’t aware of the problem for many years.
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