NM: "Symptoms of hearing loss vary from person to person, but for a lot of people, the first noticeable symptom is difficulty hearing normal conversations - the speech seems muffled or unclear. This is particularly noticeable in environments with background noise, such as restaurants or bars, and can make telephone calls difficult.

Increasing the volume on devices like the radio, car stereo, or television is often necessary. Ringing in one or both ears, known as Tinnitus, may also be experienced. This ringing can manifest as buzzing, hissing, or popping sounds and tends to be more noticeable when the background noise is minimal (such as at bedtime) or when someone feels tired or stressed."

NM: "Yes, several: heavy manufacturing, construction, aviation and transportation, utilities, mining and quarrying, textiles, hospitality, the music industry, and data centres - to name a few! The reality is that any worker who is exposed to occupational noise is at risk of NIHL, regardless of their industry or field."

NM: "NIHL can impact workers and organisations in profound ways.

The communication difficulties that inevitably rise as a result of NIHL can easily result in misunderstandings that can impact their work quality and efficiency. This, in turn, can impact overall productivity which affects an organisation’s bottom line. Not to mention the costs that an organisation can incur when they have to recruit and train new staff to replace workers who have to quit or step back as a result of hearing loss.

Also, the risk of workplace accidents can increase due to workers missing signals or approaching hazards. This has clear implications for organisations who may face legal consequences and/or fines as the result of workplace incidents. Furthermore, organisations are liable for failure to comply with regulations designed to protect workers’ hearing.

Finally, the impact on workers’ mental and emotional health can be devastating. As a result of their inability to work and communicate normally, individuals who suffer from hearing loss can experience frustration, anxiety, social isolation, and depression."

NM: "NIHL is not difficult to identify or diagnose when the appropriate test - an audiometric test - is conducted. The real challenge is that a person’s hearing function - and the true extent of their hearing loss - remains unknown without an audiometric test. Additionally, it’s often the case that people with hearing loss don’t realise that they are suffering until the hearing loss has progressed to a point that makes communication difficult. This is especially true when hearing loss occurs over time, which is often the case with NIHL. There are other factors that can make hearing loss difficult to ‘catch’ early on, including the stigma surrounding the condition. A lot of people won’t admit that they have trouble hearing until it’s noticeable to other people. At that point, the hearing loss is usually pretty significant."

NM: "Yes! By limiting exposure to loud sounds, maintaining safe listening levels, and adopting effective hearing protection strategies and noise control methods - including closing enclosures and doors, turning off unnecessary machines, and moving away from noise sources - NIHL can be fully prevented."

NM: "Most employers conduct noise risk assessments when they believe that their workers might operate in areas that exceed prescribed levels. Employers often provide hearing protection, typically in the form of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) such as passive earplugs or earmuffs, and sometimes electronic hearing protection (also called level-dependent hearing protectors). Employers will frequently provide training on noise and how to use hearing protection."

NM: "The benefit of this simplistic approach is that employers can remain minimally compliant with noise at work regulations."

NM: "This is an area that I’m particularly passionate about, so I have a lot to say here, but I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible!

The current approach to performing noise risk assessments within a working environment produces unreliable, inaccurate results. Often, assessments fail to reflect the actual operational conditions workers face and the tasks they perform. Assessments provide organisations with averages and estimates regarding the amount of noise to which workers are exposed, but the reality is that noise levels are constantly fluctuating - both throughout the working period but also over days, weeks, months, and longer.

Obtaining frequent noise risk assessments to account for these fluctuations is impractical and expensive, so many employers opt to focus on worst-case scenarios during their assessments. This leads to over-protection, which is a highly undesirable and potentially unsafe way to protect workers’ hearing. When someone is over-protected from noise, they may not be able to hear warnings, machinery, or other signals. Furthermore, when someone’s hearing protection is causing them difficulties communicating, they tend to remove it, which means their hearing is completely unprotected.

Another challenge is conducting risk assessments for remote or mobile workers in changing locations. These assessments are incredibly challenging for most employers, meaning they’re not regularly done. As a workaround, employers will use body-worn noise dosimeters on a small workforce sample to essentially estimate an individual’s actual exposure. This process is incredibly unreliable, rendering the estimation near-guesswork.

And of course, there are the unknowns of human behaviour! It’s known that people behave differently when they’re under observation. This phenomenon occurs during risk assessments, as well, and many hygienists report low confidence in the data obtained as a result.

The best-performing employers may conduct fit test training for employees who are using hearing protection. This training has proven to enhance employees' selection of earplugs to suit their ears and teaches them how to fit them correctly, helping to overcome the issues that ill-fitting, improperly used, or worn-out PPE can present. Unfortunately, this training is often not repeated; employees forget how to apply the best-fitting practices over time."

NM: "It’s helpful because it’s accurate! And reliable! Continuously monitoring an individual's noise exposure at their ear provides a precise overview of their cumulative exposure throughout the working period. This approach eliminates the uncertainty associated with generic noise risk assessments and accounts for the variations in the use and effectiveness of noise control measures, such as hearing protection or barriers."

NM: "Noise levels that reach the ears are continuously monitored for each employer throughout their entire shift, for every shift. This personal exposure monitoring effectively serves as a dynamic risk assessment that reflects changing noise levels, working tasks, locations and employee behaviours (things that are all in flux throughout a normal working period). This personalised, dynamic risk assessment enables employees to understand their risks and modify their approach by creating safer habits."

NM: "Many regulatory bodies recognise the limitations of existing regulations and standards. Real-time monitoring of various physical agents, such as vibration, dust, gas, and noise, is increasingly being adopted. Regulators understand the benefits, and efforts are underway to update historical regulations to align with this new approach."

NM: "Regulations don’t always keep pace with the challenges and problems we need to solve in the real world. Fortunately, employers are considering implementing solutions not currently mandated by law, as they recognise that the existing approaches are insufficient. They aim to do what is right for their employees, possibly in alignment with increasing ESG demands or simply because it’s the right thing to do. They also acknowledge the financial advantages of real-time monitoring."

NM: "Any sectors that require employees to work in environments with fluctuating noise levels, or in changing locations where noise levels cannot be adequately assessed. Smart Alert is also incredibly helpful in environments that do not always exceed noise action values and are not considered to necessitate hearing protection. It is in these environments that employees often mistakenly convince themselves that the noise is not too loud and thus fail to take sufficient care."

NM: "Remaining situationally aware is critical to reduce safety incidents, such as being struck by moving vehicles or equipment. It is possible to maintain situational awareness using earplugs. The term 'Hear-Through' is generally used to describe the ability of the wearer to hear ambient sounds around them while the earplugs are in place. These come in two forms: (i) electronic Hear-Through, which uses microphones and loudspeakers to reproduce (broadcast) external sounds into the ear, or (ii) passive Hear-Through, which employs an acoustic filter that allows sounds to pass through the earpiece while attenuating (reducing the force of) their intensity."

NM: "This question is best answered by describing the alerting function of the Smart Alert earplug. The primary function of the earplug is to prevent the user from exceeding their maximum safe noise exposure level. This can be configured based on different corporate policies and regulations. When the cumulative noise exposure (dose) reaches 100%, the earplug will provide audible and haptic feedback (an exposure alarm), reminding the users to reduce their noise exposure for the remainder of their day – including beyond their working day.

Reaching and exceeding the safe noise level during the working shift is undesirable. While performing continuous monitoring at each ear, the Smart Alert earplug predicts the likelihood of the user exceeding the maximum safe level. Audible and haptic feedback is presented, indicating that immediate action should be taken by the user to reduce their exposure.

Upon receiving an alert or alarm, actions that should be taken include moving away from the noise source, moving the noise away from you, turning the noise down, closing the door or barriers if present, fitting the earpieces (if not already), and if they are fitted, putting an earmuff over the top of the earplug just for the time needed. Remove the additional layer when the noise levels abate."

NM: "This is really important. The data service enables high-level and valuable insights to be derived quickly and automatically. This provides access to safety metrics that are simply not available without continuous monitoring. Automatically collected data improves data confidence, creates more transparency and visibility, and ultimately drives better safety decisions that everyone feels good about."

NM: "Yes! Smart Alert is helping workers understand that their hearing is at risk and it’s guiding them to take action. Workers are becoming more educated on the severe, long-term health impacts of NIHL, and they are less accepting of the quality-of-life implications for themselves and the knock-on effect on their families."

NM: "Everyone perceives comfort differently, but Smart Alert has been designed to be as lightweight and comfortable as possible. Many users are initially aware they are wearing it while being observed but quickly forget that it’s on. A construction worker once mentioned forgetting to remove Smart Alert when they went shopping, which we think is a pretty good sign!"0

NM: "The noise alerts are provided as guidance. They’re meant to create awareness that noise mitigation action is needed. Frequently, wearers take action. Sometimes, operational priorities mean that they are unable to take immediate action. This can be okay, so long as they are not continuously missing the opportunity to act and then exceeding the noise exposure alarm."

NM: "In our experience, yes! Teams and individual workers are prepared to make adjustments to noise control and their actions. After using Smart Alert, one customer was able to identify incorrect nozzles on compressed air lines, causing higher-than-expected noise levels. As a result, low noise equivalents were fitted. Individuals have even stated that they now wear hearing protection at home while undertaking DIY - before Smart Alert, they did not take any precautions."

NM: "Industries are generally getting quieter, and noise levels will reduce further through eliminating and reducing noise at the source (which can happen through increased automation, etc.) However, for the foreseeable future, large numbers of people will be subject to potentially damaging noise, on a daily basis. The future of occupational hearing loss looks positive in that it should decrease with the wider adoption of personal noise exposure monitoring."

NM: "There are some exciting things on the way! For dramatic suspense, we will keep it high-level and say that we are looking at improving the insights that users receive about their real-time noise exposure level. Stay tuned!"

NM: "Book a continuous monitoring noise assessment and obtain an accurate picture of your noise environment. Following the assessment, the immediate actions are simple to implement and, once the root cause is known, follow up is also pretty straightforward. These basic interventions will likely have a meaningful impact on your employees’ hearing health. Both they and their families will probably thank you for going that extra step."