Young people are presenting themselves to the audiology teams in England with difficulty in the treatment of sounds
Whether it’s the noise of the supermarket box or the sound of the coffee machine in the cafeteria, our brain works constantly to decode hundreds of noise a day.
But for some people, these background noises can be so unbearable as to distract them, compromising the recognition of voices or notices.
The administrative assistant Sophie is 25 years old, lives in London and lives this reality. He got used to people to say he doesn’t listen, he loses concentration or is “foolish half”.
“Even if I can hear these noises in the environment, I can’t distinguish where they come from,” he explains. “I know it’s the voice of a person, but I really can’t calculate it with rapid speed.”
Sophie did an hearing test, with normal results. He then looked for a private audiologist to make new exams.
In the end, a hearing processing disorder (TPA) was diagnosed, a neurological condition that makes the brain difficult to understand sounds and pronounced words.
Its audiologist and other scholars in England now ask for further research to find out if this condition can be related to the excessive use of noise cancellation headphones.
“Words seem incomprehensible”
Sophie was created in the countryside on a quiet farm.
He only noticed listening to changes a few years ago when he started attending the University of London. In particular, he had difficulty identifying the origin of the different sounds.
He rarely attended class lessons at university, having chosen to accompany them online with subtitles.
“All words seemed incomprehensible when I tried to hear the facial class,” he says.
This situation also damaged his social life. Sophie usually leaves bars and restaurants soon due to the “unbearable noise” of the places.
The cause of Sophie’s diagnosis is unknown. But your audiologist believes that excessive use of noise cancellation headphones may have been a factor of influence. Use these headphones for a maximum of five hours a day.
Other audiologists agree. They argue that further research on the possible effects of the prolonged use of these headphones are needed.
Five Departments of Audiology of the NHS, the public health system of the United Kingdom, told the BBC that there was an increase in the number of young people sent by them by the general doctors with hearing problems. These young people suffer hearing tests and receive normal results: their ability to elaborate sounds is compromised.
The TPA is more common among neurodicjecting people who have undergone brain injuries or victims of average ear infections.
But more patients are emerging with TPA outside these categories, which leads audiologists to question the contribution of external factors, such as headphones with noise cancellation.
Listen Vs. to listen
Renee Almeida is head of clinical audiology for adults at the Imperial College Healthcare Nhs Trust in London. He says it is important to listen to a diversity of sounds so that the brain can decide which are important so that they can focus on them.
Almeida’s team observed an increase in the number of young people sent for the hearing in the last year.
“There is a difference between listening and listening,” he explains. “We can see that our ability to listen to the difficulties of the faces.”
In fact, the noise cancellation headphones bring benefits, in particular for the health of long -term ears. Your soundproofing function can prevent high frequencies and the high noise reach and damage the ear, even when we hear the music.
The technological publisher of the British organization that?, Lisa Barber, states that the popularity of these devices has “exploded” in recent years, but the level of transparency can vary between different models.
“Some simply offer the cancellation of passive noise, that is, the acoustic sealing between headphones and ears reduces the noise nearby,” he explains. Others have a method of transparency that allows you to listen to part of the background noises.
False reality?
But the vice -president of the British Academy of Audiology (Baa), Claire Benton, underlines that if we block the sounds of everyday life, like the sound of cars, there is the possibility that the brain can “forget” to filter sounds.
“Create almost a false environment when you use these headphones, listening only to what you want to hear. We don’t have to work on sound,” he says.
“These more complex hearing techniques of high level in the brain are in fact only developing in late adolescence,” explains Benton. “So, if you only use noise cancellation headphones and stay in this false world at the end of teenagers, you will cause a slight delay in your ability to elaborate the word and noise.”
In England, the TPA treatment offered by the NHS for people difficult to process the processing of sound is limited.
A survey conducted in 2024 throughout the United Kingdom, Baa and Enk – the professional organization that represents surgeons specialized in otolaringiatry – concluded that only 4% of audiologists are considered well informed of the TPA.
And for patients aged 16 or over 16 years of age, Royal National Ent and Eastman Hospital is the only SSN health worker who offers a complete TPA evaluation in England. The waiting list is nine months.
Professor Doris-Eva Bamiou leads assessments to that hospital. He says that this should be partly necessary to diagnose the TPA.
“It’s a high -cost service, because it’s not just an audiogram,” he explains. “The exam can take up to two hours and requires further assessments.”
“In the case of adults, I also send them for cognitive evaluation and, in children, I can also speak with an educational psychologist,” says Bamiou.
Especially after the pandemic, the behavior and involvement in audio and video have changed. This is partly due to new products and technologies, as well as to increase anxiety in noisy environments after the blocks.
It is now common to see people walking on the street with their noise cancellation headphones and watching online videos with subtitles, even if the sound is perfectly listened to. A survey by the British Institute Yougov concluded that 61% of 18-24 years old prefers to watch TV with subtitles.
Audiologist Angela Alexander, owner of the private support organization of APD, is another professional who asks for further research on the impacts of the headphones with the cancellation of the noise on the processing of hearing, in particular among the children.
“What will the future be like if we don’t seek this relationship?” “There are many well -intentioned parents and teachers who think that the response to the problems of children’s children is to use the thorns on ears or noise cancellation headphones.”
Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital Chief of Audiology of London, Amjad Mahmood supports the need for further research.
He underlines that there has been a “significant increase in the demand” of the evaluations in the large TPA clinic of the hospital, among young people under the age of 16 – “in particular with the difficulties observed at school”.
TPA treatment can make a significant positive difference. Some patients can fully recover.
The “Words Words” training exercises so called in the mobile apps have become a popular way to practice the speech between the background noise.
But training can also vary and also include practice with hearing discrimination, such as differentiating separate sounds in similar words such as “sixty” and “seventeenth century”.
Low gain microphones and hearing aids can also be provided to patients to help them in certain situations such as meetings or classy study. But adults outside the educational system do not have the right to receive these products from the British health system.
“At this moment, I can hear a fan over my head, but my brain tells me that I don’t need to worry about him,” explains Alexander. The phenomenon it describes is known as the analysis of the auditory scenario.
“This is how we identify threats in our environment. So it makes sense for me that there has been an increase in anxiety if a person’s brain has no longer received these indications that help to say what is worrying and what is not.”
To improve this situation, Alexander suggests reducing the time of use of headphones and adopting the transparency mode, which can amplify the background noise. And it also uses the earphones that do not close or totally block their ears.
Limited search
The professor at the Faculty of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences of Queensland University in Australia, Wayne Wilson, agrees on the fact that we need further research on this possible relationship.
But he underlines that surveys controlled with many variables can be misleading.
“The danger is hidden in detail,” he explains. “The answer probably depends on which sounds, which scenes, as a noise, as cancellation of the noise, as a period of cancellation of the noise, as the child’s age etc.”
Sophie should start her TPA treatment in the coming months. He is enthusiastic about the future.
“When my boyfriend and I go to a bar, sometimes we started before because of the noise,” he says.
“It’s nice to know that after this treatment, I could be able to go to more crowded places and face the situation a little better.”
Source: Terra
Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.
