Room Background Noise Research Articles

Optimizing Noise Levels in the Inpatient Room at Bumi Panua Pohuwato Hospital

Bumi Panua Hospital is the only hospital in Marisa District, Pohuwato Regency. In each building, there is a lot of activity going on between patients, nurses, doctors, and visitors who arrive. In addition, the vehicle parking location which is right in front of the hospital inpatient room can cause noise which can reduce patient comfort. The noise level of the hospital must be in accordance with its function and meet health requirements, especially in inpatient rooms. The aim of this research is to carry out measurements to optimize noise levels in patient inpatient rooms at Bumi Panua Pohuwato Hospital. The method used in this research is a descriptive analysis method with a quantitative approach and acoustic simulation using the I-SIMPA application. From the results of Background Noise and Reverberation Time research on class III and II inpatient rooms at Bumi Panua District Hospital. Pohuwato. The condition of background noise in class III and II inpatient rooms is not good because the (dB) produced by background noise in the room is quite high, above 66 dB and exceeds the recommended standard regarding (dB) background noise in patient rooms. It should be below 40 - 45 dB. Based on the simulation results, the reverberation time in class III and class II inpatient rooms produces reverberation time that exceeds the recommended standard due to not using acoustic materials and the shape and volume of the room which causes sound reflection to occur for longer. Optimization is carried out to reduce the reverberation time so that the sound intensity in the room is not too long and can reduce background noise in the patient room.

The influence of spatialized background noise on ease of hearing in rooms

The influence of irrelevant noise on worker’s performance has not yet been studied from the standpoint of spatialized background noise in rooms. This paper presents the detriment to Ease of Hearing due to spatial auditory events produced by intruding sound in open plan offices. Auralization is used to represent a generic open plan office noise environment that includes HVAC noise, an intruding voice, and a focus voice. Two different speech communication environments are presented to the listener. In the first presentation, the intruding voice is located far from the listener’s workstation (in the reverberant field) and is not localizable. In the second presentation, the intruding voice is localized near the listener’s workstation. The focus voice is localized in front of the listener for both presentations. These sounds are played over a five-channel auralization system. Listeners are tested for the degree of Ease of Hearing (EOH) of the focus voice. Psycho-acoustical test results are presented to show the difference between the Ease of Hearing in each case. Improvement strategies to keep high quality communication are also presented based on the results.

Background noise in rooms used for pure-tone audiometry in disability assessment.

Background noise limits for audiometry are determined by the effects of masking and are specified in international standards. The standards provide for audiometric testing over a range of audiometric frequencies extending down to 500 Hz or lower. The lowest frequency of testing is an important factor determining the admissible noise, and for certain applications it is appropriate to consider the limits applicable to testing over a more restricted range. Assessment of hearing disability in the UK is generally based on a consideration of pure-tone hearing threshold levels in the frequency range 1 kHz upwards. A modification of the standardized noise limits is proposed which allows some relaxation appropriate to this higher minimum frequency. For air-conduction audiometry, these modifications affect only the permissible background noise in the frequency range below 1 kHz. Where bone-conduction audiometry is required in order to quantify a conductive component of the hearing loss, the measurements need to be made on both ears with the non-test ear masked in both cases; the external background noise will thus only be heard monaurally and this justifies a correction to the noise limits compared with those appropriate to bone-conduction audiometry without masking.