Hearing doesn’t disappear overnight. The damage usually occurs gradually and it often happens, especially in the beginning, that this change goes unnoticed. First, it becomes difficult to understand a conversation in a very noisy environment, such as a crowded public space, eating in a restaurant, a conversation between colleagues in the office, or walking on the street. The discomfort worsens until it becomes difficult to hear even loud voices, and eventually the mild hearing loss progresses to deafness, meaning the damage is complete and irreversible. In most cases, the cause is simply age: 12.7% of the world’s population over 60 years of age has moderate hearing loss, a percentage that rises to 60% by age 90. , according to the World Health Organization (WHO). However, specialists are noticing that younger and younger people are coming to consultations with ear problems.
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“The average age has fallen by around ten years. “If patients used to have problems at the age of 70 to 80, now it is a decade earlier,” says Mari Cruz Iglesias, head of the department of otolaryngology at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid. The doctor explains that the hearing loss and deafness of these patients have nothing to do with the natural aging of the inner ear – the so-called presbyacusis – but are due to prolonged exposure to noise. “Traffic, cinema, concerts and nightclubs. Even when we go to stores to shop, there is music. It’s a life full of acoustic trauma that lasts all the time,” explains Iglesias.
The WHO predicts that by 2050, around 2.5 billion people in the world – one in four – will have some degree of hearing loss. Although the increasing numbers are mainly due to demographic changes, such as the global growth of the elderly population, there are other factors that affect a person’s hearing health throughout their life. A main cause is excessive noise.
“Unfortunately, we lack objective data because no comprehensive studies have been carried out on this topic,” admits ENT doctor Miquel Quer from the Sant Pau Hospital in Barcelona. “But it is obvious that we live in a society where there is a lot of noise, and we have known for many years that noise triggers presbycusis. It’s not surprising that patients are getting younger and younger.”
Typically, exposure to sound intensity greater than 80 decibels for more than 40 hours per week can cause irreparable damage to the sensory cells of the inner ear. Traffic on a major city street can reach 60 decibels; the full room of a restaurant reaches 80; The noise of a motorcycle reaches 90 and the music in a nightclub reaches 100. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work estimates that between 25% and 33% of workers in Europe are exposed to high levels of noise, at least for a quarter of their working day.
The danger of personal listening devices
In addition to environmental and work factors, Quer focuses on leisure environments, the most problematic factor of which is prolonged and loud listening to music through personal devices such as headphones and headphones. A major scientific study published last November in the British Medical Journal Global Health estimates that between 670 and 1.35 billion adolescents and young adults worldwide are at risk of hearing loss due to exposure to unsafe listening practices.
The problem with headphones lies primarily in two factors: the prolonged use of them in already very noisy environments, such as: B. Streets full of people and cars, and the lack of distance between the transmitter and receiver. ear canal. “Headphones will undoubtedly be the problem of the next generations, of patients who, within 10 or 20 years, will begin to realize that they have lost their hearing,” explains Jacinto García Lorenzo, head of the department at the Mar de Mar Hospital in Barcelona.
Meanwhile, the ENT doctor admits that he has already started treating young people who come to his practice with presbycusis. “It would be no exaggeration to say that the decline of the Middle Ages has begun. It was no longer just our grandparents who were deafened by the noises at work. “There is a whole generation that is now reaching old age and already has serious hearing problems,” he explains. “The prevalence of hearing loss is increasing in the Western world, and Spain is no exception.”
Misuse of personal listening devices is not the only factor causing younger and younger patients to begin experiencing serious hearing problems, although it is certainly the most recent. Otolaryngologist Eduardo Raboso, head of the department at La Princesa Hospital in Madrid, explains that in cancer patients the frequency of deafness is gradually increasing due to the drugs used in chemotherapy that can damage hearing. “These are treatments that are essential for healing today, but which were not so widespread among the population a few years ago,” the doctor points out.
Lack of data and awareness
One of the main problems experts point out is the lack of data when it comes to quantifying how many patients “at the average age of 50” have some type of hearing impairment. “There is a feeling that people go to consultation when it is too late, when they have serious problems, and not when they start to understand that something is not working as it should,” explains Luis Lassaletta, president of the Society Otology Commission. Spanish ear, nose and throat medicine. “When they finally go to a specialist, their only option is to have a cochlear implant because they already have cases of severe or profound hearing loss.”
Before reaching this resource – which in Spain is used by around 20,000 patients, according to the Spanish Society of Otorhinolaryngology – specialists insist on the need to seek a consultation as soon as possible. “Acoustic trauma is caused by a combined damage that lasts a long time. Everything that has been lost cannot be restored. The only thing that helps is to preserve the remaining hearing and eliminate listening habits that endanger hearing health,” emphasizes Lassaletta.
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