Clinic Blog 6 - Week 6

This week I did not see anything very interesting. On Monday Nicole saw a physical plant worker with a severe high frequency hearing loss and on Thursday I also tested a physical plant worker with a moderate high frequency hearing loss. I think we need to use our knowledge about hearing loss and stress the importance of ear protection, especially for younger children and high school kids who blast their music 24/7. I get on my sisters every time I go home and they have their iPODs so loud that I can hear what song is playing!! (they are little 12 and 14, so hopefully they listen to me even when I'm not around, haha)

I did some research on noise induced hearing loss and iPODs. I found this article from Harvard that tested 3 different ear phones/ear buds and the apple bud was one of them. I also found many other articles about the insane number of iPODs that have been sold (i believe 50 million) and the amount of time people spend listening to them. I have listed a few of the articles below....check them out, and remember not too loud !!!!!

Fligor, B, & Ives, T. Does Earphone type effect the risk for recreational noise induced hearing loss?
http://www.hearingconservation.org/docs/virtualPressRoom/FligorIves.pdf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/16/AR2006011601100.html

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=11524&Page=1&pagePos=1

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060202-6100.html