With an aim to raise public awareness on ear care and prevention of hearing loss, “world hearing day”, which is held on March 3, every year will be observed all over the world under the theme “hear the future”, with key messages that highlight – 1) expected rise in prevalence of hearing loss globally over the coming years, 2) efforts that are required to stem the rise through appropriate preventive action and 3) need to ensure that people with hearing loss have access to the required rehabilitation services and the communication tools and products they require.
ENT specialist, Naga Hospital Authority (NHAK), Dr. R. Zhimatho Nyusou said that 360 million people live with disabling hearing loss, while 750 billion is the overall cost of un-addressing hearing loss globally. WHO estimates that 1.1 billion young people worldwide are at risk of hearing loss due to unsafe listening practices.
Dr. R. Zhimatho Nyusou asserted that parents need to play an active role in educating their children about safe listening and monitoring their exposure to loud noise and that teachers should also educate children and adolescents about possible dangers of exposure to loud sounds from the misuse of personal audio devices and encourage to develop safe listening habits. “Such information should be part of the health education curriculum”, he added.
He laid out prevention of harm from exposure to loud sound like “keeping the volume down”, using carefully fitted buds, limiting the time engaged in noisy activities, wearing ear plugs and regular hearing checkups.
While adding that the main reason for hearing loss was “exposure of the ear to electromagnetic field emitted by the mobile phones which further add to the damage”, Dr. R. Zhimatho Nyusou said that initial hearing loss was temporary and hardly noticeable by the person or his significantly close people only after significant hearing occurs, the person notices changes in understanding speech in crowded or noisy places.
His advice was that hearing loss due to use of cell phones could be prevented by “limit the use of cell phones to necessary talking and go for landlines when possible”, “refraining from using low quality ear phones”, “using speaker mode when the chat is very long, “using bluetooth headset, which can reduce the exposure to electromagnetic radiation” and “using low volume levels for listening to music”