Noise exposure can lead to damage to an human ear. Noise exposure is considered an invisible injury to the human body since the damage isnt visible. The damage caused by noise exposure can be difficult to notice until ringing in the ear or difficulty in hear other people speaking in crowded rooms.
These symptom indicate that damage to the ear has already occurred. The human ear contains thousands of tiny hair cell that allow sound vibrations to be translated into electrical signals that the brain understand. These hair cells are delicate and do not regenerate within the human body.
How Loud Noise Hurts Your Ears and How to Protect Them
Prolonged exposure to high-intensity noise can lead to the breaking of these hair cell. The breaking of these cell is a biological failure of the ear and is why regulator include decibel thresholds to avoid this biological failure in human being. Many people believes that the danger of noise exposure is linked with the discomfort that high-intensity sounds can cause.
However, exposure to loud sounds can lead to hearing loss even if the sound isnt uncomfortable to the individual exposed. Hearing loss can occur through temporary threshold shift where individuals feel like there ears are muffled after being in loud environment. Although individuals may feel comfortable after being in those loud environments, the damage has already been done to the hair cells in the ear.
Continued exposure to these conditions over many year can lead to permanent deafness in those individuals exposed to loud sound for long period of time. Because sound energy relate to a logarithmic scale, a small increase in decibels can lead to a more massive increase in the amount of sound energy that is being radiated. As a result, a small increase in decibel within a task can convert that task from one that is not at risk for hearing loss to one that is at risk for hearing loss and that require the wearing of hearing protection.
To provide hearing protection, there are many different type of protection available such as earplugs and earmuffs. Each of these product contains rating of the level of hearing protection that they will offer. The actual protection that the product offer to individuals may be less than the ratings provided by the manufacturer of those products.
For instance, if an individual does not roll a foam earplug enough when inserting it into the ear, the earplug will not provide the level of protection as promised for that product. The same can be said for earmuffs if an individuals safety glass break the seal of the earmuffs. In areas with high-intensity noise, one layer of hearing protection may not be enough to protect the ears of the individual working in these areas.
For these area with high-intensity noise, the use of dual protection should be utilized. The use of dual protection suggests the wearing of earplugs within earmuffs to ensure that the noise exposure of individuals in these areas is kept below the zone where hearing damage can occur. In addition to the use of hearing protection, employer can also take step to reduce the noise exposure of their employee.
One of the best method of noise reduction is to engineer the machine that are creating these noise to reduce such outputs. For instance, placing a machine into a soundproof enclosure will reduce the amount of noise that is released into the workplace. Additionally, using vibration mount for machines will also reduce the noise that is emitted from those machines.
Reducing the noise level at the source of the noise is the best way to eliminate the risk of noise exposure to worker. Additionally, while hearing protection is a crucial line of defense, it is an alternative means of protecting the ear of workers. Relying on hearing protection alone for all workers is a risk to the ear of those worker.
The goal for employer is to avoid developing a noise notch within the workers audiogram. A noise notch on an audiogram indicate that the worker has experienced hearing loss due to overexposure to loud noises. To avoid this hearing loss, the use of hearing protection should be implemented into the job of those worker.
Once exposure to loud noises has led to hearing loss, that hearing loss will be permanent.