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Occupational hearing loss — an otologist's view of a long‐term study.
Author(s) -
Alberti P. W.,
Morgan P. P.,
Leblanc J. C.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
the laryngoscope
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.181
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1531-4995
pISSN - 0023-852X
DOI - 10.1288/00005537-197410000-00013
Subject(s) - audiologist , audiology , hearing loss , medicine , audiometry
Seven hundred nineteen consecutive patients referred by The Workmen's Compensation Board for adjudication of hearing loss of presumed occupational etiology, have had an otological and audiological evaluation. Significant ear disease was found in 7 percent of ears, and in >3 percent it was considered the major cause of hearing loss. Routinely evoked response audiometry was undertaken in a consecutive sub‐series of 258 patients and the results compared with conventional tests. Approximately one in five showed an exaggerated hearing loss, which was well predicted by the audiologist on the basis of the patient's attitude during conventional tests. It is argued that compensation awards based upon pure‐tone averages ignore a major aspect of the patient's handicap — the loss of ability to discriminate sound in background noise. Comparison between speech discrimination results and pure‐tone threshold responses showed a statistically significant inverse relationship with the low frequency response and a positive relationship with high frequency response, which is contrary to the present method of evaluating handicap awards. It is suggested that 500 Hz should be eliminated from the frequencies used in handicap evaluation of sensori‐neural hearing loss and/or that at least one extra higher frequency (3,000 or 4,000 Hz) be included.