Monthly Archives: March 2015

Precious Hearing: Shouting from the Roof Tops

March 10, 2015

As International Ear Care Day 2015 just passed, I’d like to discuss some of the strange ways we treat our precious hearing.

Why do we call our hearing ‘precious’ (is there a better word than precious?).

Dr. Barry Blesser of MIT in a speech to The National Hearing Conservation Association in 20121, pointed out the our ears are different from most other senses. They are fully functional at birth. They remain ON 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until we cease to exist. As Dr. Blesser put it, we have no ear lids. With them being so valuable and unique, why do we abuse them in a way we don’t abuse any other sense. As children, we cover our eyes to protect them from bright light, cover our ears for loud noise, and shy away from hot or sharp objects (for the most part). At some point in our development, we maintain our protective actions for everything but our ears. As teenagers the lure of the power of music overcomes our sense of preservation. This sense of otoinvincibility (that our ears can take anything) caries on through adulthood for many of us. We go to concerts and revel at the power of the music. Some of that power comes from shear acoustic power of the performance.

Recently, I went to a Keith Urban concert. The opening act was moderately loud at 93 decibels. The next act, a bit louder at 98 dB and the Keith came on and the sound levels peaked at 110 dB (only someone in the hearing conservation business wearing two hearing aids would spend time measuring this in a concert with an app on my phone. Notice I use the term sound, not noise).

While these were peak values, it is interesting to note that all three acts are using the same sound system for the concert. How loud is that?

Let me use an industrial context to illustrate my point.

Hearing Conservation

There are hearing conservation regulations in many countries defining how loud the sound can that a worker is exposed to. In some countries, once a level of between 80 and 85 decibels is reached, a worker will need to wear hearing protection regardless of the amount of time they were exposed to the sound. Their hearing will be consider safe if they remained in the noise up to 8 hours as long as they wore something to block the sound in their ears. Eventually what will happen is the sound level will rise above that level (the level at which they need to wear a hearing protector). There’s a calculation of the amount of sound energy to which the ear can be exposed as the sound rises. In many jurisdictions if the sound rises 3 decibels, the amount of time you can be exposed to that sound is just in half. For example, if the sound rises from 85 to 88 decibels, the safe exposure time drops from 8 hours to 4 hours. If it rises to 91 decibels, the safe exposure time is 2 hours. (In this I am referring to the sound level underneath anything being worn to protect your ears from sound).

For this example, let’s assume the protector being worn is only providing 1 decibel of protection. That’s not realistic but it simplifies the illustration because many people don’t use hearing protection at all). For those of you reading this who were of the understanding there would be no math, I apologize.

What’s the point. Let me go back to Keith’s concert.

If it wasn’t a concert casino but was an industrial workplace, the 90 minutes Keith played at sound levels would be unsafe. Actually, using the method of calculating how long we could safely be exposed to those levels of sound above, if we assumed an average sound level 100 decibels for Keith’s 90 minute concert, we’d have to either leave of protect our ears with earplugs after 15 minutes. What happens after 15 minutes? It’s complicated but the risk of hearing damage rises dramatically.

Why am I picking on Mr. Urban? I’m not. I’m using his concert as an illustration of the problem. WE, the audience, are demanding our entertainment and our
entertainers gives us this kind of energy. In Europe, especially Sweden, earplugs are commonly worn in loud venues. NFL football games last 2 1/2 to 3 hours and sound levels recorded at the 50 yard line have been record at exceeding 110 dB. Using the same math as above, the stands should be emptied after 3 3/4 minutes or have all the fans wear earplugs or muffs. Hockey game noise levels have been measured at 104 dB. At that level we should have fans wear earplugs or limit the game to one

7 1/2 minute period. Not realistic? Sure it is. The obvious choice is for the people, we fans, to get our energy from the play, the performance, the action and not the sound level. Stevie Wonder concerts have fans movin’ and groovin’ at safe hearing levels. Leonard Cohen concerts are exceptional events with moderate sound levels. Showing my age? Possibly. The point is, it is possible to enjoy sports and entertainment without loosing your hearing.

Producers of these events must make protection available and give guidance to the audience about the need to wear it. To not do so is to conscious hurt people and I doubt that’s their intent. Either than, or enjoy Keith’s 15 minute concerts.

Custom Protect Ear Spreads The Word About International Ear Care Day 2015

March 3, 2015

Custom Protect Ear Spreads The Word About

International Ear Care Day 2015

March 3, 2015, Vancouver BC, Custom Protect Ear, North America largest personalized industrial hearing protector manufacturer shares in spreading the word about International Ear Day.

International Ear Day is an initiative of The World Health Organization to focus attention on the damage people are doing to their ears. Designated at the First International Conference on Prevention and Rehabilitation of Hearing Impairment in Beijing, China in 2007, the Day aims to raise awareness and promote ear and hearing care across the world.[1]

In 2015, the theme for International Ear Care Day is ‘Make Listening Safe’. This theme will draw attention to the rising problem of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). NIHL can be immediate or it can take a long time to be noticeable. It can be temporary or permanent, and it can affect one ear or both ears. Even if a person can’t tell that they are damaging their hearing, they could have trouble hearing in the future, such as not being able to understand other people when they talk, especially on the phone, in a noisy room or at a noisy worksite. Regardless of how it might affect you, one thing is certain: noise-induced hearing loss is something that be prevented[2]

For years hearing professionals have been trying to determine why people suffer from hearing loss. There are companies that do routinely measure how loud these noises are, plus they measure how much of that loudness people are exposed to. Hearing loss has become a worldwide problem, however there are devices and processes to do something about danger of Noise Induced Hearing Loss.

Hearing protection devices have been around since the 1930’s with companies like Honeywell, 3M, and Custom Protect Ear committed to finding better ways to make hearing protection. Custom Protect Ear makes a device called dB Blockers, which is hearing enabled. This means that people/workers can wear the dB Blockers in a noisy place over a long period of time and will not experience the affects of Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL)

“dB Blockers not only block noise, they also manage the noise to the ear to a safe level. Given our human propensity to keep safe, especially in loud threatening noise, is it any wonder workers/people choose safety for the whole human over safety for their ears? ” ~ says Jeffrey Goldberg President of Custom Protect Ear

March 3^rd, International Ear Care day is a day for awareness and promote ear and hearing care across the world. The day highlights general awareness about recreational hearing loss has potentially devastating consequences for physical and mental health, education and employment. Join Custom Protect Ear and The World Health Organization in following the hearing loss activities that have been organized for the International Ear Care Day.

About Custom Protect Ear

For over three decades, Custom Protect Ear has been the leader in providing effective, verifiable, and noise level matched hearing protection at a cost lower than disposable earplugs. As North America’s largest personalized industrial hearing protector manufacturer, hearing conservation is their only business.Custom Protect Ear devotes all of their research and expertise to the innovation of making better hearing protection. As a result, Custom Protect Ear has made significant technological advances in the development of superior hearing protection.

For More Information please contact

Jeffrey Goldberg
Custom Protect Ear
604 599 1311
Jeffrey@protectear.com

[1] http://www.who.int/pbd/deafness/news/IECD/en/index1.html

[2] http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/pages/noise.aspx

International Ear Care Day: ProtectEar

March 2, 2015

What is International Ear Care Day?

It’s an initiative of The World Health Organization to focus attention on the damage we are doing to our ears.

Let me pose a question.

What would be the government’s response to 1/3 of a population coming down with the same disease?

2 million people in New York develop the flu.
5 million people in Southern California develop Chicken Pox or Measles.

The response would most certainly be swift and decisive.

Noise Induced Hearing Loss

Did you know that 1/3 of the people working in noise have a workplace illness called Noise Induced Hearing Loss. Now it is not exactly the same as acquiring a deafness illness, however the damage is done because the onset of their hearing loss has taken place over many years; whereas in the scenarios I sighted above the onset of the disease is more immediate.

Many of us wonder how did this happen?

For years hearing professionals have been trying to determine why people suffer from hearing loss. We certainly know these industrial sites and noises can be loud and damaging. Not only do we routinely measure how loud they are, we also measure how much of that loudness workers are exposed to. So we know the danger. We also have devices and processes to do something about that danger.

For example, there are companies capable of engineering the noise out of facilities. How prevalent is that? United Technologies recently won the prestigious Safe-in-Sound award from NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, a Branch of the Center for Disease Control) and The National Hearing Conservation Association for removing enough noise from their workplaces to move 80% of their noise exposed workers (8,000 people) from their hearing conservation programs world wide. We are also educated in ways to protect our hearing when exposed to noise.

Hearing Loss – A bigger problem

Let’s start with engineering the noise out of facilities. A recent pole of Canadian companies suggested that about 10% of them measure the noise exposure of their workers. That does not mean they don’t know what noise levels they have; they do. (The difference between noise level and noise exposure is how much time the worker spends in what level of noise). It’s the amount of noise a worker is exposed to over a given time that the company has to control; but many companies don’t know what that is. Protecting their workers based on the noise level rather than noise exposure usually means that in most cases you’re actually over protective. This is based on the assumption that someone who works in 95 decibels of noise seldom is in the noise for 8 hours, without breaks.

Then where’s the problem?

The following contains some conjecture unproven, as yet, by independent study

Most organizations will provide their workers with hearing protectors sufficient to protect their hearing from the noise they are exposed to. Some of the workers will use it properly and some don’t. To understand why, we need to look at the human condition. Dr. Barry Blesser states that since man first descended from the trees, it is our hearing that has been our primary safety sense. Hearing can detect dangers we can’t see. Unlike other senses, the ears are fully functional when the human is born; the rushing waterfall hidden by the trees, a large animal crashing through the undergrowth, a charging wildebeest coming around a rock are audible before they are visible. It is possible we are genetically wired to rely on our ears to keep us safe.

The one thing we can assume about places with loud noises is that something dangerous is making that noise. Then to protect our hearing from that loud noise we usually render them partly or fully non-functional by plugging them. At this point I need to point out that Custom Protect Ear’s dB Blockers are hearing enabled. They don’t block as much as manage the noise to the ear to a safe level. Given our human propensity to keep safe, especially in loud threatening noise, is it any wonder workers choose safety for the whole human over safety for their ears? Often they disable the full protection the hearing protection device offers. I think it’s to keep safe.

As I said, this has yet to be conclusively proven by independent study but the fact remains that workers routinely don’t leave their earplugs fully in place when exposed to noise. What’s the solution? A recent roundtable at the National Hearing Conservation Association Annual Conference in New Orleans agreed that we need to know the answers to the question of Why workers disable their protection. Until we do, we should provide workers with hearing enabled devices, with effective education as to their use, and the dangers of not using it. We owe it to them. Especially on International Ear Care Day.

Jeffrey Goldberg | President
Custom Protect Ear