Aug. 8, 2007
The rate of hearing impairment as the current young American generation ages is predicted to be twice that of their parents’ generation.
The elderly of the future will be more likely to suffer from hearing loss than the current elderly population. The reason is changing higher volume music listening habits and generally higher noise levels in the technology driven society.
Steven Greenberg of Silicon Speech in Santa Venetia, California, projects that the number of Americans with hearing loss will reach 50 million by 2050, according to his presentation at The Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2007.
Research in restoring damaged hearing cells is at an early stage, and no treatment to restore hearing lost due to high noise levels is in sight. The only sensible response to the dire projections and the associated threat of increased numbers of people suffering the social and psychological isolation from hearing loss is to promote prevention and avoiding unnecessary noise.
Source: hear-it.org
Original source: www.cnn.com (20.02.2007)
