Hearing Link Goes to Parliament House

28/08/08

Hearing Awareness Week

Hearing Link Goes to Parliament House

As part of its activities for Hearing Awareness Week Hearing Link took the booth and audiometer to Parliament House and conducted hearing screenings.

Over the 2 days at Parliament House we screened a total of 49 people comprising members of staff, elected Members of the House, some media people and the public.

Of those

Only 16% showed normal readings (results below 20dB for all frequencies)
28% had results indicating a mild loss (between 20-40dB). A mild hearing loss results in some degree of difficulty with conversation when there is background noise,
55% showed results in the moderate to severe range. (over 41dB generally in the higher frequencies) . This means that conversation can be missed or misinterpreted, communication works best one to one with no background noise and may mean other issues such as hearing on the telephone, hearing the television, participating in community events, shopping etc are compromised.

The screening results certainly reconfirms that hearing loss affecting communication is MUCH more common than is realised.