Week 8, Fall 2007

This week I saw many hearing conservation clients. Generally, they had normal hearing or mild to moderate HF HL. Normal (Type A) tympanograms were found. ART testing, speech testing, and OAEs were not performed due to supervisor requests and time constraints. Aside from unprotected occupational noise exposure and some noisy hobbies, I recorded no outstanding case history information. The most difficult part about seeing clients with normal or near-normal hearing who are exposed to occupational noise is imparting the importance of consistent hearing protection when exposed to noise. Many of the clients that I saw reported that wearing standard foam earplugs made it difficult to do their job properly. They stated that they would not be able to hear necessary communication or warnings if they were wearing hearing protection. Additionally, 2 of my clients were in their 20s & 30s and didn't feel as though they had been affected yet by noise. Even though clients claimed that they would begin or continue using hearing protection, I'm not sure if my counseling was effective or if they were just saying what they thought I wanted to hear.

The following article, Hearing Conservation: Carrot More Effective than Stick, addresses motivating hearing conservation employees to protect their hearing. The article lists 3 tips to motivate clients. They include the following: 1) "Dispelling the illusion of invulnerability," 2) "Demonstrating future risk," and 3) "Removing the barriers to wearing hearing protection." All tips would be applicable to the clients that I saw this week.

In addressing the first tip, dispelling the illusion of invulnerability, the authors recommend providing hearing conservation workers a copy of their annual audiogram along with a simple description of the results. In addition, using OAEs as a counseling tool to describe more subtle changes in hearing may also be effective. For the second tip, "demonstrating future risk," the authors suggest that younger workers talk with older workers who have endured noise-related HL. For the third tip, "removing the barriers to hearing protection," the authors recommend installing hearing protection dispensers for easy access or providing custom hearing protection to increase comfort and satisfaction. All of these suggestions could help improve our interactions with hearing conservation clients.

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