Distortion product oto-acoustic emission: a superior tool for hearing assessment than pure tone audiometry

Objective: Hearing plays a crucial role in the performance of a soldier and is important for communication and speech processing. Service personnel are constantly exposed to high levels of noise and hence predisposed to occupational health disabilities, principally noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL)...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Neeru Kapoor, K. V Mani, Manish Shukla
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2019-01-01
Series:Noise and Health
Subjects:
oae
Online Access:http://www.noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;year=2019;volume=21;issue=101;spage=164;epage=168;aulast=Kapoor
Description
Summary:Objective: Hearing plays a crucial role in the performance of a soldier and is important for communication and speech processing. Service personnel are constantly exposed to high levels of noise and hence predisposed to occupational health disabilities, principally noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) and tinnitus. NIHL is a significantly common impairment in the military and can affect the warfare performances. Parochial awareness about the effects of uproarious noise which exacerbates their hearing, acceptance rate of use of hearing protection devices and follow-up audiological tests have become the major drawback for prevention of NIHL and are less pondered upon. Method: The present study focuses on the effects of noise on the hearing of service crew operating and maintaining military equipment and explores the efficacy of DPOAE’s to substitute pure tone audiometry as a quick, easy to operate and implementable test technique for monitoring of hearing status. Results: The results suggest that DPOAE test is important and more coherent than audiometry alone for the early detection of cochlear injury due to noise from military operations and efficacious for detecting NIHL.
ISSN:1463-1741
1998-4030