Abstract

Hearing conservationists need effective schemes to determine whether their hearing-conservation programs (HCPs) are successful, determine whether new interventions are helpful, and establish which personnel in their care have an increased risk for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Currently, these goals cannot be achieved because the measure of success is also the measure of failure—by the time a hearing loss is recorded, personnel have already been damaged and the HCP has failed. Tests are needed that enable audiologists to catch hearing loss before it becomes clinically signifi cant and—better still—stop a hearing loss from ever occurring. An otoacoustic emission (OAE) test may be the solution. OAEs are sounds produced by the inner ear that are measured in the ear canal with a special microphone. There are various types of OAEs: the most common are distortionproduct OAEs (DPOAEs), which are evoked with two

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