Hearing Loss on the Rise in US Teenagers

JAMA published research showing a rise in hearing loss among US teenagers from 15% between 1988-1994 (2928 teens) to 20% from 2005-2006 (1771 teens). The study was a cross-sectional analyses of US representative demographic and audiometric data.

No one quite knows exactly why this has happened... but my guess is the increasing prevalence of portable music players where loud music can cause hearing damage.

Read a story on this in Reuters here.

Reference:
Change in Prevalence of Hearing Loss in US Adolescents. JAMA. 2010;304(7):772-778. doi:10.1001/jama.2010.1124

Another Article on Dangers of Hearing Loss from Loud Concerts and iPods

The Daily News on Aug 21, 2009 published yet another article on the dangers of loud concerts and iPods resulting in permanent hearing loss. The article is titled "Beware: Loud concerts and iPods make music dangerous."

In our practice, there have been a few patients every year in their 20s and 30s who have experienced sudden hearing loss as bad as 80 year olds after attending a loud rock concert. The hearing disappears after the concert... and it never comes back. This phenomenon is called Sudden Sensori-Neural Hearing Loss or SSNHL for short.

Please wear ear plugs... and if you experience hearing loss or ringing/tinnitus after being exposed to loud noises that does NOT come back within a few days, see your local ENT as soon as possible. There are only a few medications that can help reverse the hearing loss, but only works if given within the first 2 weeks ideally and not more than 4 weeks.

Read the full article here.