scholarly journals Is exposure to personal music players a confounder in adolescent mobile phone use and hearing health studies?

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (11) ◽  
pp. 4527-4534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geza Benke ◽  
Christina Dimitriadis ◽  
Berihun M. Zeleke ◽  
Imo Inyang ◽  
Dean McKenzie ◽  
...  

Objective This study was performed to determine whether exposure to personal music players (PMPs) in the immediate morning prior to hearing testing confounds the association between mobile phone use and hearing thresholds of adolescents. Design In this cohort study of cognitive function in year 7 students (median age 13 years, range 11–14), information regarding the weekly use of mobile phones and the use of PMPs was assessed by a questionnaire. Pure-tone audiometry was used to establish hearing thresholds for all participants. Results Among a cohort of 317 adolescents (60.9% females), 130 were unexposed to PMP use while 33 were exposed to PMP use in the morning prior to hearing testing. No statistically significant difference in hearing threshold shifts was found between adolescents who were and were not exposed to PMP use prior to hearing testing. Likewise, the difference in the use of mobile phones according to the PMP use status was not statistically significant. Conclusion Exposure to PMPs prior to hearing testing did not introduce confounding in the present study of mobile phone use and hearing loss among adolescents.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-58
Author(s):  
Priya Malik ◽  
Aditi Singla ◽  
Raman Wadhera ◽  
Navdeep Gupta

Introduction: Mobile phones as fastest means of communication, indispensable for daily life globally. The widespread use has given rise to concerns about the potential health hazards of its electromagnetic fields (EMFs) on human health. The present study was conducted to investigate the adverse effects of mobile phone usage on auditory functions and to study the pattern of hearing threshold in mobile phone users. Objective: The objective of the study was to study the effect of mobile phone on average pure tone audiometry (PTA) threshold of the person and to study the changes in the pure tone threshold at high frequencies such as 2 kHz, 4 kHz, and 8 kHz among the students with prolonged exposure to mobile phones. Material and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 medical and paramedical students who have been using mobile phones for one year or more, divided in two groups. Group A- less than one hour per day and GroupB- more than one hour per day. The effect of mobile phones on the PTA threshold in the exposed ear and the nonexposed ear was also assessed. Results: The study shows that there is a significant difference in average air conduction (AC) and bone conduction (BC) hearing threshold among the exposed and the nonexposed ears (P < 0.05) especially at high frequency. A significant rise of both AC and BC threshold in group B more than group A also noted in this study. Conclusion: The study conducted shows changes in the hearing threshold with mobile usage. The technology along with comfort also brings some hazards, hence to limit the duration of usage of mobile phones.


2019 ◽  
pp. 014556131987124
Author(s):  
Devanshu Kwatra ◽  
Sunil Kumar ◽  
Gautam Bir Singh ◽  
Ratna Biswas ◽  
Prabhakar Upadhyay

Purpose: This study explores the changes in hearing thresholds in pregnancy. Materials and Methods: A prospective hospital-based observational study was performed with a total of 69 patients in the age-group of 18 to 40 years. Patients underwent hearing assessment twice during the study period. Conventional pure tone audiometry and impedance audiometry were performed, first during the antepartum period (28-32 weeks of gestational age) and second time during the postpartum period (6 weeks postpartum). Results: Significant difference was seen between the average of air conduction threshold values at speech frequencies when antepartum values were compared with postpartum values. Conclusion: The alterations in hearing sensitivity in pregnant females which improved during the postpartum period can be attributed to pregnancy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Cox ◽  
Bert de Vries

Pure-tone audiometry—the process of estimating a person's hearing threshold from “audible” and “inaudible” responses to tones of varying frequency and intensity—is the basis for diagnosing and quantifying hearing loss. By taking a probabilistic modeling approach, both optimal tone selection (in terms of expected information gain) and hearing threshold estimation can be derived through Bayesian inference methods. The performance of probabilistic model-based audiometry methods is directly linked to the quality of the underlying model. In recent years, Gaussian process (GP) models have been shown to provide good results in this context. We present methods to improve the efficiency of GP-based audiometry procedures by improving the underlying model. Instead of a single GP, we propose to use a GP mixture model that can be conditioned on side-information about the subject. The underlying idea is that one can typically distinguish between different types of hearing thresholds, enabling a mixture model to better capture the statistical properties of hearing thresholds among a population. Instead of modeling all hearing thresholds by a single GP, a mixture model allows specific types of hearing thresholds to be modeled by independent GP models. Moreover, the mixing coefficients can be conditioned on side-information such as age and gender, capturing the correlations between age, gender, and hearing threshold. We show how a GP mixture model can be optimized for a specific target population by learning the parameters from a data set containing annotated audiograms. We also derive an optimal tone selection method based on greedy information gain maximization, as well as hearing threshold estimation through Bayesian inference. The proposed models are fitted to a data set containing roughly 176 thousand annotated audiograms collected in the Nordic countries. We compare the predictive accuracies of optimized mixture models of varying sizes with that of an optimized single-GP model. The usefulness of the optimized models is tested in audiometry simulations. Simulation results indicate that an optimized GP mixture model can significantly outperform an optimized single-GP model in terms of predictive accuracy, and leads to significant increases the efficiency of the resulting Bayesian audiometry procedure.


2021 ◽  
pp. 49-51
Author(s):  
R. Shanthimalar ◽  
R. Bhuvaneswari ◽  
V. Sumathi

Introduction: Noise has become a very important stress factor in the environment. Drivers are the most commonly affected persons due to trafc noise. The majority of drivers remain unaware about noise induced hearing loss as this is an insidious process, leading to temporary or permanent hearing impairment, but preventable. Pure Tone audiometric test is used to determine the degree of hearing loss in noise exposed individuals. Aim & Objective: To nd the hearing threshold levels for high and mid frequency sounds for both ears in Professional drivers. To evaluate the preponderance of hearing loss between right and left ear using hearing thresholds. Materials & Methods: This study was conducted in 100 Professional male drivers aged between 30-40 years who are working in Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation, Madurai. Pure tone audiometry was used to measure the high and mid frequency hearing threshold levels in both ears. Results: The mean (SD) hearing threshold for high and mid frequency sounds was signicantly higher in left ear comparative to right ear with P value < 0.05. The statistically signicant difference in hearing loss was observed between both ears. Conclusion : Our study showed statistically signicant higher hearing threshold for high and mid frequency sounds in left ear compared to right ear, that concludes left ear is more prone for hearing loss than the right ear


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nandini Vijaya Singham ◽  
Mimiwati Zahari ◽  
Mohammadreza Peyman ◽  
Narayanan Prepageran ◽  
Visvaraja Subrayan

Background. Our study aimed to investigate an association between ocular pseudoexfoliation (PXF) and sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) and to compare them with age and sex matched controls without pseudoexfoliation.Method. This was a case-control study of 123 patients which included 68 cases with PXF (at least one eye) and 55 controls without pseudoexfoliation. Pure-tone audiometry (PTA) was done for these patients at sound frequencies taken as important for speech comprehension, that is, 250 Hertz (Hz), 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, and 2000 Hz.Results. There were 41 patients with pseudoexfoliation syndrome (PXE) and 27 with pseudoexfoliative glaucoma (PXEG). The majority of patients with hearing loss (60%;n=51) were PXF patients and the remaining 40%(n=34)were controls. Below average hearing thresholds were significantly higher in the pseudoexfoliation group compared to the control group (P=0.01; odds ratio (OR), 3.00; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.25–7.19). However, there was no significant difference in the mean hearing threshold levels between the three groups (PXE, PXEG, and controls) in either ear (ANOVA, right ear:P=0.46and left earP=0.36).Conclusion. Our study found an association between PXF and SNHL, confirming that PXF can involve organs in the body other than the eye.


2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehmet Akdag ◽  
Zeynep M Akkurt ◽  
Aylin Gul ◽  
Derya Ucmak ◽  
Beyhan Yılmaz ◽  
...  

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of oral isotretinoin, a drug used in the treatment of acne vulgaris, on hearing function determined by serial audiology examinations. Methods: Forty patients with acne vulgaris were included in this study. Nine patients were excluded from the study because of inconsistent follow-up. The hearing of each participant was tested with pure tone audiometry and transient evoked autoacoustic emissions before and two and four weeks after treatment with isotretinoin (0.3-0.6 mg/kg/day) in the remaining 31 patients (62 ears). Results: The differences between the mean values of the pre-treatment and post-treatment pure tone hearing thresholds at 1000, 2000, 4000 and 6000 Hz frequencies were statistically significant (p < 0.05), but there was no significant difference between the pre-treatment and post-treatment values at 250 and 500 Hz frequencies (p > 0.05). The difference between the pre-treatment and post-treatment signal–noise ratio values of the transient evoked autoacoustic emissions was not significantly different (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Our results suggest that the use of isotretinoin may cause bilateral hearing threshold changes. Further animal and human studies are required to investigate and characterize isotretinoin-induced neurophysiological alterations in hearing.


Author(s):  
Priya Kanagamuthu ◽  
Thirunavukarasu Palanisamy ◽  
Rajasekaran Srinivasan

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> With the advent of new smart phones every day, health hazard related to it is also increasing. The usage of mobile phones has become a domineering activity of the students. Such usage have been documented to cause many health hazards like hearing loss, the mobile phone electromagnetic radiation has other potential risks like vehicular accidents, headache, and sleep disturbances, thermal effects and alteration of blood brain barrier. The objective of the study was to assess the hearing loss with pure tone audiometry due to chronic mobile phone usage among medical college students in a tertiary care hospital.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> This was a cross sectional study conducted among the medical students from June 2018 to December 2018, with the sample size of 129. The participants were interviewed using pretested, validated questionnaire followed the participants were subjected to pure tone audiometry.  </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> Among the 129 participants, the majority of the study participants (58.1%) were females. The median age of the participants was 20 and almost 42.7% of the participants used in ear media while using the phone. 10.9% and 19.4% showed symptoms of tinnitus and hard of hearing respectively. On testing the participants with pure tone audiometry, around 9.3% had mild hearing loss and 3.9% had moderate hearing loss.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> The health hazard caused by the mobile phone usage may not be evident for many years. The students are exposed to smart phones frequently and hence periodic screening and health education regarding the harm of using mobile phones for longer duration should be made imperative.</p>


2010 ◽  
Vol 67 (9) ◽  
pp. 761-765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoran Komazec ◽  
Slobodanka Lemajic-Komazec ◽  
Rajko Jovic ◽  
Congor Nadj ◽  
Ljiljana Jovancevic ◽  
...  

Background/Aim. A more recent method, the auditory steadystate response (ASSR), has become more and more important test method due to difference that was found in previous investigations between hearing thresholds determined by the ASSR and the pure-tone audiometry (PTA). The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability of the ASSR in determining the frequency specific hearing thresholds by establishing a correlation between the thresholds determined by PTA, as well as to evaluate the reliability of ASSR in determining the hearing threshold with respect to the level of hearing loss and the configuration of the PTA findings. Methods. The prospective study included 46 subjects (92 ears) which were assigned to groups based on their level of hearing loss and audiometric configuration. All the subjects underwent determination of hearing thresholds by PTA and ASSR without insight into their previously obtained PTA results. Results. The overall sample differences between the ASSR and PTA thresholds were 4.1, 2.5, 4.4, and 4.2 dB at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz, respectively. A high level of correlation was achieved in groups with different configurations of PTA findings. The correlation coefficients between the hearing thresholds determined by ASSR and PTA were significant in subjects with all levels of hearing loss. The differences between hearing thresholds determined by ASSR and PTA were less than 10 dB in 85% of subjects (ranging from 4 dB for moderately severe hearing loss to 7.2 dB for normal hearing). Conclusion. The ASSR is an excellent complementary method for the determination of hearing thresholds at the 4 carrier frequencies, as well as determination of the level of hearing loss and the audiometric configuration.


Author(s):  
Netra A. Pathak ◽  
Sanjana V. Nemade ◽  
Kiran J. Shinde

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Hearing loss is common in patients with chronic renal failure. It is well known that chronic renal failure (CRF) causes different systemic and otorhinolaryngologic manifestations due to the accumulation of nitrogenous waste products. The aim of the study was to evaluate hearing threshold and the severity of hearing loss at different frequencies in patients of chronic renal failure (CRF), and to analyse the role of duration of disease on hearing threshold in patients of CRF.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> Fifty two patients of CRF were included in the study. Pure tone audiometry was done in all cases.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> Majority of the patients were in 21 to 40 year age group (mean: out of 52 patients, 38 patients (73.07%) had sensorineural hearing loss and 14 patients (26.93%) had normal hearing. Majority of the patients with hearing loss had mild (44.73%) or moderate (42.11%) sensorineural hearing loss. On comparison of the mean hearing threshold Group II (duration of disease more than five years- 17 patients) showed a statistically significant difference (P&lt;0.05) in mean hearing threshold at 250 Hz.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Hearing loss is present in majority of the patients of CRF. Most of the cases have mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss. High frequency hearing loss in chronic renal failure is related to the duration of the disease, duration of haemodialysis’ and internal homeostasis, namely hyponatremia.</p>


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