The lecture at school on Hearing Loss Prevention for musicians by Dr. Jan de Laat of the Leiden University Medical Center was given on Nov 14, 2023.
If you missed the lecture, you can view the lecture here. Please contact the teacher if you were not at the live lecture.
Hearing Loss Prevention for Musicians
You can also use the recording to review materials to fill in the questionnaire below.
Or take a look at the Powerpoint Hearing Loss Prevention.
Please fill in this questionnaire and submit it in your folder on Project Campus Professional Development: MMB section. Please use a doc or pdf file and label it: “Lecture 2, hearing loss prevention.”
If you need to look something up quickly, here are some Dutch and English websites below that you can look at.
If you have any concerns about your hearing after this lecture, please contact the teacher or mail Dr. de Laat with your question! His e-mail is at the bottom of this page.
Questionnaire:
1. Find out online which decibel levels are damaging and within which time frames. How long can you allow yourself per day to listen to sound at 80 decibels, 85 decibels, 100, or 110? (Search on google using title “decibel chart hearing damage with minutes”)
2. What happens when your ears are damaged by too loud sounds? What gets damaged, and can it repair itself, or not?
3. There are several types of hearing damage that can occur due to exposure to loud sounds? The speaker named: Hearing Loss, Tinnitus, Hyperacusis, Diplacusis and Distortion. Describe at least three of these, and how they would affect the hearing.
4. What does it mean when you get a beeping/piep sound in your ears after loud sounds or music? What kind of damage does this indicate?
5. What are professional earplugs for musicians? How are they different from other types of earplugs? Which types of earplugs are both safe for musicians, and allow them to hear all frequencies? Why are ready-made plugs not effective?
6. Are you planning to have the measurements made at school for your professional custom earplugs when this becomes possible?
7. What did you find out during the lecture that you did not know before?
8. What would you like to know more about that you did not hear in the lecture?
9. Did the lecture leave you with questions or concerns?
10. After the lecture, did you think about how to protect your ears in future? Do you think your instrument and playing situations might put you at risk for hearing loss during your professional life?
11. Do you think that any other aspects of your life might make you at risk for hearing loss due to loud sounds? Listening with headphones or earpieces, or to your phone, going to clubs, regular loud environmental sounds….etc?
12. In what ways can you protect your ears in addition to earplugs? Will you be changing your behavior in any way after the lecture? How?
13. Name a few examples from the lecture of how musicians’ ears can be protected during their work by changing the work conditions. Will you speak up in situations where work or school might damage your ears?
14. Was the lecture relevant to your studies? In what way?
Websites:
Dutch sites: Oorcheck.nl (from Dr de Laat)
Take a hearing test online and read more: Veiligheid.nl
Learn about rights at work: Arbopodium
English sites: musiciansclinics.com (from Dr.de Laat)
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association OR National Hearing Loss Charity (UK)
Dr. Jan de Laat is open to receiving questions from individual HKU students via e-mail.
His address is: J.A.P.M.de_Laat@lumc.nl