United States: People risk brain injuries from regularly blocking environmental sounds with noise-canceling headphones, according to expert findings. There is increased diagnostic evidence of this injury pattern among youth patients worldwide.
More about the news
The BBC received reports from five NHS audiology departments indicating sensorineural hearing issues have been growing among young patients.
Scientific testing indicates that hearing problems develop within the brain instead of inside the ear.
The number of auditory processing disorder (APD) diagnoses increases because this brain-based neurological condition interferes with sound processing functions, according to the New York Post report.
Although someone with ADP would show normal hearing test results since they operate correctly, the person may struggle to identify certain details within sounds, such as sound locations.
What more are the experts stating?
The combination of noise disturbances or rapid speech delivery leads to difficulty in their understanding of the conversation.
People in this situation require things to be restated, while their spoken responses take longer before they complete their answers.
According to a neurologist, Martin Kutscher, “The brain processes these electrical impulses into sounds, then into words, and then into meaningful sentences and ideas,” the New York Post reported.
“Most of us do it effortlessly. Some adults have problems converting these electrical neuronal impulses into meaning. We call these problems central auditory processing disorders,” Kutscher added.
Clear indications of ADP include moments when patients struggle with accepting verbal commands and hearing music, as well as their efforts to learn another language.
The disability of APD emerges during childhood, with prevalence rates among children between 2 percent to 7 percent.
APD negatively interferes with their capacity to read and establish correct word spellings.
ADP diagnosis in young adults represents a new phenomenon even though medical conditions like head injuries or meningitis, chronic ear infections, and low birth weight normally lead to ADP.
According to Claire Benton from the British Academy of Audiology, as interviewed by BBC News, adults seem to “forget” their ability to hear background sounds because they frequently use headphones.
“You have almost created this false environment by wearing those headphones and only listening to what you want to listen to. You do not have to work at it,” she stated.
All that noise-canceling can cause your brain to overcompensate, according to David McAlpine, the academic director of Macquarie University Hearing, which can lead to increased sensitivity and what he calls “listening loss.”
Moreover, as David McAlpine, the academic director of Macquarie University Hearing, mentioned, “If you have a listening loss, it’s like changing your brain’s encryption,” he told Quartz. “Even if you can change what you’re hearing, you may not get back to the brain state that you had before. It’s not reversible.”
“I do think that we’ve let the big tech companies co-opt our listening habits, monetize it, and sell it back to us,” McAlpine added.
“Their solution to the hearing problem is probably creating a listening problem,” he continued.