Industrial Deafness Risk, Noise Induced Hearing Loss, Advice, Tips

Industrial Deafness : Prevention

Hearing Loss Article

6 Aug 2012

Preventing Industrial Deafness : a Few Tips

The risk of getting industrial deafness is a major concern for millions of workers across the country. This is particularly so due to the amount of jobs that can lead to the illness and the subtleties of the disease which render its presence often hard to spot. The following is some invaluable information on industrial deafness and a few tips on how to prevent it from occurring or getting worse.

What is Industrial Deafness

Industrial deafness is a noise induced hearing loss associated with working in an environment where loud noises are generated – such as jobs in factories or construction sites dealing with noisy machinery. Its occurrence can be both sudden or slowly built up over a period of time.

The illness’s can be divided into four main types: temporary loss of hearing, permanent loss of hearing, acoustic trauma and tinnitus.

Its symptoms are a lack of hearing in one or both ears; encountering difficulties hearing speech while there is background noise; experiencing constant buzzing, ringing and ticking noises; and always needing to turn the television volume up to what others consider to be high levels.

Prevention Tips

· It is absolutely vital that you not only wear the required protective hearing gear (earplugs or earmuffs), but that you wear them correctly. You should be trained on how to wear them appropriately prior to starting your job, and thus if this training hasn’t been done yet, then seek to have it implemented.

· Earplugs or earmuffs must be worn at all times in working areas that involve high levels of noise.

· It is also important to look after your protective gear to ensure that they’re always working correctly. Many industrial deafness claims have been the result of the protective gear breaking without the worker knowing.

· Try to constantly be away from areas of high level noise as much as you can without it affecting your work performance.

· Constantly seek checkups with your GP to ensure that you don’t already have industrial deafness. By being diagnosed you then have a stronger chance of preventing the illness from developing further.

image courtesy of article provider