Noise Induced Hearing Loss and Its Prevention (cont.)
How can a person tell if a noisy situation is dangerous to their hearing?
People may differ in their sensitivity to noise. Nevertheless, as a general
rule, noise is probably damaging to the hearing if the noise:
- makes it necessary to shout to be heard over the
background noise,
- causes ear pain,
- makes the ears ring, or
- causes a loss of hearing for several hours or more after exposure to the
noise.
In contrast to popular belief, there is no truth to the idea that a person is
able to "toughen up" the ears by frequent exposure to loud noise. In
reality, cumulative noise in the past has probably damaged the ears to such a
degree that a person doesn't hear the noise as much. Unfortunately, no
treatment is available for noise-induced hearing loss once the damage has
occurred.
How loud can a sound get before it affects hearing?
Many experts agree that continual exposure to more than 85 decibels (dB) is dangerous to the ears. As already mentioned, the decibel is a measure of the
intensity of sound. For example:
- the faintest sound the human ear can detect is labeled 0 dB,
whereas the noise at a rocket pad during launch approaches 180 dB;
- a quiet
whisper is approximately 30 dB;
- normal conversation is 60 dB;
- a lawnmower is
90 dB; and
- the sound from an iPod Shuffle has been measured at 115 dBs.
Decibels are measured logarithmically, which means that the sound energy
of noise increases by units of 10. Therefore, a dB increase of a sound from 20
to 30 dB is an increase of 10 times, and a dB increase of a sound from 20 to 40 dB
corresponds to increase of 100 times (10 times 10).
Next: Do the duration and closeness of exposure to loud noise relate to hearing
damage? »
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