Latest / The SOM Podcast / SOM MINI CPD - Hearing Loss & Tinnitus: The Poor Relation of Health? with Clare Forshaw

Transcript

SOM MINI CPD - Hearing Loss & Tinnitus: The Poor Relation of Health? with Clare Forshaw · The SOM Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This podcast is sponsored by orchid Live. Find out more
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: at orchidlive dot com. Hello and welcome to the SO podcast.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I'm Steve Randall and this episode is one of a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: monthly series to help you as an occupational health professional
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: with your CPD as we invite specialists to share an
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: overview of some of the topics you've told us you'd
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: like to find out more about.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: My name is Claire Foreshaw. I'm the professional head of
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Health and well Being at the RSSB, and I'm also
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: a founder and director of the UK Hearing Conservation Association.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Well, Claire, welcome. We're talking about hearing health, which is
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: something we don't necessarily talk about a lot.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think here in health is certainly
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: somewhat overlooked. I've always, in my role as working in
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: health and the health side of health and safety for
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: many years, proclaim that we don't treat health like safety
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: and health is the poor relation of safety. And I
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: think I've found that exposure to noise and hearing health
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: is the poor relation of health. It's kind of deemed
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: one of those topics that you know, it doesn't kill people,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: that it's an inevitable result of aging. Whereas actually all
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: hearing loss is preventable if we protect our hearing, and
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: certainly in trades and industries like yourself, I think it's
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: now becoming more realized that actually hearing and good hearing
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: is important for our jobs, our roles, our happiness, and
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of the things we enjoy in life, including
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: human connection. Yeah.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean I know several people just in my
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: family and friendship group who suffer, for example, with tinatus,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: which may or may not be the result of exposure
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to loud noise in their work environment, but certainly it's
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: something that does affect the quality of their life.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: That's again an underrecognized cosymptom of noise induced here and loss.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: We know that people exposed to noise can be similarly
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: affected by tintus. And again, interestingly, like a lot of
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: occupational health diseases, until you talk to people and ask
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: them or mention some of these topics, I wouldn't say
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: it's taboo, but people just don't kind of open up
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: and discuss these things openly. And people say, oh, I've
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: suffered from tinitous. It really affects me. I can't sleep properly.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: And again going back to that kind of hearing loss
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: allegedly doesn't kill people. You know, a lot of people
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: find tintus so intrusive and so impactful on their lives
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: that then in extreme cases, people have resulted in taking
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: their own life because it's such an invasive issue for
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: them to deal with. Most we shouldn't have to struggle
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: with these things, you know, if we can prevent them,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: if we can educate these health issues, you know, we
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: can take them more seriously and look to protect ourselves
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: rather than putting up with these things. Through more recent
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: studies that noise induced hearing loss is one of the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: biggest what we call kind of modifiable risk factors for
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: early onset dementia. We don't know the exact kind of
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: causal pathway of how or why that link exists. The
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: ideas that I went back to that kind of comment
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: before about you know, communication connection, going to events that
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: we enjoy. When you've got hearing loss or you find
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: it difficult to hear in background noise, you retreat from
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: those social situations that impacts on our kind of cognitive capacity.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: So it does lead, you know, potentially to you know,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: poor well being, depression. And as I say that this
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: link that's now been established to early on set dementia,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: so it is much broader than just an aging issue.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And we can just get some hearing aids and you know,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: everything will be fixed and we'll just put up with it.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: But hearing aids, as clever as the technology is becoming,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: they don't replace the kind of real, kind of delicate
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: nature of our natural hearing incapacity, those kind of you know,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: frequencies that are tuned into human voices.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And in the workplace, it's kind of a shared responsibility,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: isn't it, between the employer offering ways to reduce the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: impact of loud noise and other things that may damage
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: our hearing, but also the employee, particularly where things are
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: not mandatory, choosing to take up those measures that are
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: on offer.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as I say, there's a grow and recognition within
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: the kind of entertainment sector of the importance of protecting
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: the hearing. But you're the kind of massive prevalence and
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: use now of listening devices. You know, you look at
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: anybody walking down the street, sitting on a tube on
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: a boss public transport. So many people now are connected
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to audible content throughout their day. You know, a lot
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: of people can can go to work, whether it's a
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: noisy workplace or not. But they could have had their
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: full noise dose if you're like the full safe limited
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: exposure before they've even got to the workplace. You know,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: if it's not a noisy workplace, they could be listening
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: to content at work. They could go home and I
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: don't know, do some gaming or whatever else, or go
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: to a club or you know, the cinema, go to
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: the gym. I mean, the gyms can be really loud
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: as well. You're that kind of idea of crank up
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: the music and work harder. It's, you know, not about
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: spoiling people's fun. It's not about saying, you know, don't
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: listen to loud things. It's really bad for your ears,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: you know, because because that's just going to switch people off.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: But using your your kind of noise dose in a
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: sensible way, thinking about how much kind of noise you're consuming,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: don't overuse it, that you ruin it and say that
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: irreversible loss. Once it's gone, you don't get it back. Tinatus.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: There's no cure for tinitus. There's no reversible way to restore,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: to restore your hearing either.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: You see Claire I now feel duty bound to say,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: anybody who's listening to this podcast, you know, do you
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: need it to be as loud as it is?
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Simple things like I mean, noise excluding headsets typically
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: mean you don't have to ramp up the content to
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: drown out the background noise around you. The only caveat is,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: you know, if you're using noise excluding headsets, be careful
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: of your awareness of yours surroundings. But yeah, yeah, just
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: think about, you know, how loud are you listening, how
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: long you're listening to it for.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: And other particular sounds that are worse for our hearing
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: than others. I mean, it seems to me, just purely
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: off the top of my head, that actually those sort
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: of the sort of treble sounds, those sort of higher frequencies,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: for example, are potentially worse than more basic sounds. But
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: maybe that's not right.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: There is some evidence around kind of unwanted noise, So
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: we call noise the kind of unwanted acoustic energy. And
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: because it's unwanted, you know, it affects us in a
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: more negative way. And some idea that if we're enjoying sound,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: and sound is something we want to listen to as
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: opposed to the noise that it has less of a
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: damaging effect. But it's it's it's difficult to to prove,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: you know, outright, whether that's whether that's a real a
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: real thing, but you know it's all it's all energy,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: and that that energy enters our ears, and our ears
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: are made up of really fine hair cells. So you know,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: just if we just think a bit from an energy perspective,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: once those hair cells are knocked out, you know that
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: that that's that's not going to recover. So we're really
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: looking at protecting the frequencies of our ear, our hair
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: cells that allow us to hear, as I say, conversation
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: and music and things like that. So so some frequencies
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: of loss wouldn't affect our lives as much. But the
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: kind of common noise exposure that we get in the workplace,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: that kind of middle range, you know, is going to
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: affect us in that in that area that we really
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: use and value.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: And some workplaces will have constant noise, others will have
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: loud impacts every so often. Is there any difference between
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the two in terms of damage to your hearing?
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and those kind of impact short, short duration, high
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: energy noises can in and of themselves cause immediate damage.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: It has to be fairly loud, so we're talking to
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: kind of like gunshots and things like that. There are
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: legal limits around peak levels of impact noises and your
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: kind of continuous background noise. I think where I find
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: quite often is people forget about the impact noises if
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: they're not extremely loud but still exists, so we kind
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: of average out those sound exposures in the workplace. They
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: can be more harmful in addition to those background noises.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: So if you've got a fairly high level continuous noise
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: and then you've got these kind of short base noises
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: coming in that you haven't assessed for because you ears,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: if you're like your hair cells in your ears are
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: already stressed, that short impact noise can be more damaging
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: than the background levels. It's not just about you know,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: putting headphones on or ear protection. You know, really we
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: should be turning the sound down where we can, moving
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: away from the noise where we can, not creating the noise.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: You know a lot of noises created in workplaces where
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: we could just switch things off. And going back to
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: that kind of the impact of why it's so important
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: it reminded me of a quote from an American activist
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: called Helen Keller, who was deaf blind. She lost a
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: site and a hearing at at a young age, and
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: she's sort of quoted saying, you know, losing my sight
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: took me away from things, but losing my hearing took
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: me away from people. And I think that's quite a profound,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: you know, way for us to think about. We usually
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: think about our sight as being so important because we
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: like to see what's around us, and don't maybe value
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: how which we use our sense of hearing to connect
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: with people.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Now, an our age professional might go into a workplace,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: perhaps it's a new client, and they'll immediately notice noise
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that those who work there all the time are perhaps
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: oblivious to largely how do they bridge that with the employer?
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: If you're standing two meters away from someone and you're
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: having to raise your voice to have a conversation with
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: them straight away, you can assume that level of noise
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: is harmful. So if that's the situation you're in, you know, again,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: we use our senses. We walk around, we look, we
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: listen and say, this is pretty loud, and it seems
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: to be coming from that thing over there. You know,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: what can we do about that thing there that's creating
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: all this noise? And why are these all these people
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: milling around it, you know, being exposed. So just sometimes
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: having that conversation, and you typically when you do going
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: back to the kind of mental health impact, people workers
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: won't say, oh yet, really noisy it hurts my ears
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: because it won't hurt their but they might say things like, yeah,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: it's really noisy, it's distracting, it's stressful. If you've ever
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: been in a noisy place that you don't want to
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: be in, so I don't know these kind of kids
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: play areas or noisy shots, you come out and you
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: feel on edge, don't you You feel fight or flight
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: instinct and go, God, thank god I got out of
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: that situation. It's so noisy. It was driving me insane.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: And you know, again go back to say that kind
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: of mental health impact that's not good for people. And
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: we know there's a link with this kind of cardiovascular
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: response and that stress response to those environments as well.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So if we can just quiet in our world a
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: little bit where we don't want to be affected by
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: these noises that we don't want to listen to Yeah,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: maybe we'll all be a little bit happier and calmer
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: How can people find out more about you, Claire and
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: how can they get in touch with you?
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I'll work through the UK here in Conservation Association. You
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: can find us online under that kind of title for
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: our website and on the social you go through those
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: routes and I'm sure you'll be able to find me
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: on LinkedIn as well, So if you ever want to
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: contact I'm quite passionate about this. I've been involved in
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: the topic for quite a long time, so always happy
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: to have a chat with anybody about this.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: This podcast is sponsored by orchid Live. Orchid Live is
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: a specialist occupational health software used by a number of
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: some members to run every aspect of their occupational health operations.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: They hold healthcare records for over one million UK workers
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and work with both in house OH teams and OH providers.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: You can find out more at orchidlive dot com.