Hearing Loss and Military Personnel
I guess it's not a surprise to most of us that many of our military
personnel are suffering from hearing loss. Soldiers from Iraq and
Afghanistan report that hearing loss and tinnitus are their most common
disabilities. Military officials are trying to address this issue, but
it seems to be moving pretty slowly. I expect our soldiers will continue
to report high levels of both hearing loss and tinnitus.
September 2012 - Preventing noise induced
hearing loss and tinnitus in soldiers
January 2012 - Marine Corps mandates yearly hearing
test for all
August 2011 - The Military Paradox
February 2011 - GAO Recommends Defense Department
Improve Hearing Conservation Programs
January 2011 - Military, VA audiologists are confronting
a wave of IED-related hearing damage
October 2009 -
HLAA Convention: Military Veterans with Hearing Loss Project
February 2009 -
HLAA Supports Vets
with Hearing Loss
Mar
2007 - Who listens to a deaf old Marine?
December 2006 - Soldiers
Exposed To Gunshot Noise Need Better Hearing Protection
October 2006 - ATA
Promotes More Research to Benefit Veterans with Tinnitus
More on this and related
topics
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August 2011
The sense of hearing is important for communication.
In the military, hearing is crucial for the instruction, teamwork, and
reporting that are necessary for mission accomplishment. Hearing is also a
critical defense for the war fighter, warning against threat and danger and
promoting self-preservation. The military paradox lies between the ongoing
need for enhanced, clear communication, and the need to protect the auditory
system from the engines and mechanization of war. Hearing loss is truly a
silent disability. It often has no visible external manifestation of injury
and has low priority for care in the trauma setting. However, hearing loss
and auditory system injury often confounds other injuries and can present as
an immediate barrier to communication and understanding, which is especially
dangerous in life-and-death war situations.
Full Story
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January 2011
As long as American soldiers are sent off to fight
on noisy battlefields, many are bound to come home with hearing-related
injuries. The continuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are no exception.
However, the ear-related disorders that military audiologists are diagnosing
this time around are markedly different from the problems common among
soldiers who fought wars in previous decades. Widespread exposure to
improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, has resulted in much greater numbers
of traumatic brain injuries, or TBI, that manifest as more complex acoustic
trauma such as central auditory processing disorders (CAPD), as well as many
more complaints of tinnitus and non-hearing-related complications. That's
different from the experience of those who fought in the first Persian Gulf
War, Vietnam, and other conflicts of the 20th century. In those theaters of
war, soldiers were also exposed to hazardous noise, but the source was
typically small-arms fire and the hearing injuries were more commonly found
in the ear instead of the brain, according to military audiologists.
Full Story
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January 2010
When gearing up for a mission in Afghanistan, a
service member wouldn't dream of forgetting their helmet, gloves, weapon,
eye protection or body armor. But what about hearing protection? According
to Air Force Staff Sgt. Lee Adams, an ear, nose and throat (ENT) technician
at Bagram Air Field, more than 50 percent of the patients seen in the ENT
walk-in clinics are there for hearing-related issues. The first question I
ask a patient who comes in with a hearing complaint is, 'Were you wearing
hearing protection?' says Air Force Col. Joseph A. Brennan, the ENT doctor
at Bagram. Since I arrived here in May, I have not had one service member
answer yes to that question. Deployed service members are exposed to many
dangers while in combat zones. According to Brennan, many troops do not use
hearing protection while out on missions because they feel that the hearing
protection negatively affects their ability to do their job and complete
their missions.
Full Story
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December 2009
More than two-thirds of British troops returning
from Afghanistan are suffering severe and permanent hearing damage,
according to the most comprehensive study into one of the less well-known
side-effects of the conflict in Helmand. Internal defence documents reveal
that of 1,250 Royal Marine commandos who served in Afghanistan, 69% suffered
hearing damage due to the intense noise of combat. The findings indicate
that complaints such as tinnitus or almost complete deafness among combat
troops are considerably greater than previously reported. One audiologist
said the report revealed that hearing loss was endemic among Afghan
veterans, with many suffering defects that could bar them from frontline
service.
Full Story
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September 2009
A next-generation earplug designed to make it easier
for troops to protect their eardrums will soon hit the war zone. The
challenge for leaders is getting every soldier to wear the plugs. The new
Combat Arms Earplug is made of the same washable plastic as the current
earplug and has the same "triple flange" construction to keep it in place.
But instead of removing the plug to operate a dial that regulates the amount
of sound entering the ear canal, the new earplug uses a rocker switch that
is operated without removing the earplug. Soldiers can adjust the rocker
with a quick "click" depending on the amount of protection they need. When
it's in the open or "weapons fire" position, sound can travel through the
sound channel filter into the ear. For noisy environments that don't require
an acute listening capability, such as around helicopters, troop carriers or
generators, the rocker can be switched to the closed or "constant
protection" position. Hearing protection has been standard issue for combat
forces since 2002, but even so, one in four soldiers returning home report
hearing loss, dizziness or ringing in the ears, according to Army
audiologists.
Full Story
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March 2009
Navy officials who helped design and purchase
F/A-18E/F Super Hornets in the 1990s failed to initially consider ways to
reduce the fighter jet's deafening noise level, putting today's flight-deck
sailors at risk for hearing damage, according to a Naval Audit Service
report. Even when flight deck crews wear earplugs and cranials, Super
Hornets are dangerously loud. Noise levels are near 150 decibels, a sound
blast far beyond the hazard level of 84 decibels for civilian jobs, the
audit service found. Navy officials who developed the Boeing-made jet and
the similar EA-18G Growler "made no initial attempt to mitigate the
flight-line/deck jet noise hazard through design selection," according to
the report. "We also found that there was no mention of noise limitations in
the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G acquisition strategy and contract Statement of
Work."
Full Story
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February 2009
Staff Sgt. Chris Mountjoy couldn't hear for three
days after the mortar round screamed into his camp and exploded 15 feet from
him. The open door of a Humvee saved him from the shrapnel, but a shock wave
blew him 30 feet into a wall, perforating his ear drums. His hearing came
back, but only partially. Now, more than two years later, the 27-year-old
who loved being in the infantry spends his days behind a desk at the 10th
Combat Support Hospital in Fort Carson, Colo., where he was reassigned
because of his hearing loss and a traumatic brain injury from the blast.
Hearing aids help him, but they're not perfect. He seldom lets his two young
children play in a different room because he cannot hear if something were
to happen.
Full Story
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February 2009
Staff Sgt. Chris Mountjoy couldn't hear for three
days after the mortar round screamed into his camp and exploded 15 feet away
from him. The open door of a Humvee saved him from the shrapnel, but a shock
wave blew him 30 feet into a wall, perforating his ear drums. His hearing
came back, but only partially. Now, more than two years later, the
27-year-old who loved being in the infantry spends his days behind a desk at
Fort Carson's 10th Combat Support Hospital, where he was reassigned because
of his hearing loss and a traumatic brain injury from the blast. Hearing
aids help him, but they're not perfect. He seldom lets his two young
children play in a different room because he cannot hear if something were
to happen. He avoids loud restaurants, where background noise blots out
dinner conversation with his wife. Mountjoy isn't alone in his quiet world.
A cacophony of roadside bombs, machine guns and heavy equipment is wreaking
havoc on the hearing of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. An Army
questionnaire of soldiers returning from Iraq found that as many as one in
four returned from Iraq with some level of hearing damage.
Full Story
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January 2008
Bomb blasts, howling engines, growling generators
and the deafening roar of military aircraft have made the war zones noisy
enough to damage soldiers' hearing. An estimated 25 percent of redeploying
soldiers have reported experiencing some change in their hearing, or
dizziness or ringing of the ears, according to Army audiologists whose data
was gathered from hearing tests done at units and installations after
deployments. The hearing tests are now mandatory in an effort to collect the
data from all soldiers and make sure they are fit for duty and get follow-up
care if needed. They must take the test as soon as practicable upon
redeployment, or as part of their post-deployment health assessment.
Active-duty soldiers are required to have the test no later than six months
after redeployment. For National Guard and Reserve soldiers, the test must
take place before they go off active duty.
Full Story
November 2008
In September 2007, a U.S. Navy officer working with
the Marines' executive safety board issued a simple, stark warning.
According to a presentation by Cdr. Stan Jossell, the Marines -- and to some
extent the services in general -- are buying new equipment that is so loud
that it's not a matter of whether but when and how badly operators will
suffer permanent hearing damage. Jossell noted, moreover, that the
technology to protect users from damage does not yet exist. Jossell, who
declined to be interviewed for this article, singled out the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) as particular
problems. Noise levels for these systems "will result in permanent hearing
loss," he wrote. "We are not protecting our people . . . [Program Executive
Office] Tacair has accepted the 'serious risk' for the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G
engine noise. Yet we are actually accepting the probability of permanent
injury, not the risk of the occurrence."
Full Story
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October 2008
Hundreds of soldiers are returning from Afghanistan
suffering from severe and permanent damage to their hearing because of the
overwhelming noise of intense combat. Nearly one in ten soldiers serving
with one regiment have hearing defects that could bar them from further
frontline service and affect their civilian job prospects, The Times has
learnt. The number of hearing injuries is one of the untold stories of
Britain's military campaigns, evoking comparisons with the thunder of battle
in the two world wars and the Korean War. Many of the soldiers involved in
the most violent clashes with Shia militias in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 also
returned with permanent hearing impairment. But in Afghanistan roadside
bombs, ferocious close-combat clashes with the Taleban and 500lb bombs
dropped by coalition aircraft have burst eardrums, caused tinnitus and, in
some cases, resulted in total deafness.
Full Story
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August 2008
The bombs along the Baghdad road exploded one after
the other, leaving one soldier unconscious and another screaming from his
wounds. Staff Sgt. Kevin Dunne's squad was under attack. Rifle and machine
gun fire pinned them down. Then shots from a sniper. Dunne yelled orders,
but he and his squad were at a disadvantage. Dunne says he couldn't hear
well enough to tell where the sniper fire was coming from. "I had no idea,"
he wrote in an e-mail to USA TODAY. In the four months before the April 7
attack, the chief physician at Fort Hood, Texas, had warned that Dunne's
hearing was so bad that he should be removed from combat duties. Others in
the Army overruled him and sent Dunne back to Iraq for his third combat
tour. Now, a member of Dunne's squad - Sgt. Richard Vaughn, 22, of San Diego
- lay dead from a sniper's bullet. "He was lying in the middle of the street
motionless," Dunne wrote. "I blame myself a lot for not being able to
identify the threat simply because of the way I heard the shots."
Full Story
June 2008
No matter which side of the political spectrum you
sit on, the undeniable fact is that war is very bad for the soldiers'
hearing. Research carried out by the U.S Army Center for Health Promotion
and Preventive Medicine shows that troops in combat zones are over 50 times
more likely to suffer noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) than soldiers who
don't deploy. Do you think your vacuum cleaner is loud? Consider this: a
typical vacuum cleaner emits, according to the Noise Pollution
Clearinghouse, an anti-noise organization, between 84 and 85 decibels. An
M-16 rifle, on the other hand, registers at 157 decibels, and other weapons
can be even louder. The explosion of roadside bombs, for example, is so
powerful, it can rupture the eardrum and break bones inside the ear. Sadly,
the full extent of the hearing damage to the troops may not be known for
years. What is evident right now from the figures released by the Department
of Veterans Affairs (DVA), is that of the 1.3 million U.S. soldiers who
served in Iraq since the war started in 2003, nearly 70,000 are currently
collecting disability for tinnitus, and more than 58,000 are on disability
for hearing loss, making hearing damage the number one disability produced
by this war.
Full Story
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March 2008
In September 2005, the Institute of Medicine (IOM)
of the National Academies released Noise and Military Service: Implications
for Hearing Loss and Tinnitus. Hearing loss and tinnitus are among the most
common forms of disability among military veterans. The Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA) reported that at the end of fiscal year 2003,
disabilities of the auditory system, including tinnitus and hearing loss,
were the third most common type of disability among compensated veterans. At
the end of 2004, the monthly compensation payments to veterans with hearing
loss as their major form of disability represented an annualized cost of
some $660 million. The corresponding compensation payments to veterans with
tinnitus as their major disability were close to $190 million on an
annualized basis. However, determining whether a veteran's hearing loss or
tinnitus is attributable to prior military service can pose a challenge for
the VA if documentation of hearing thresholds or tinnitus during military
service is not available. After the fact, hearing loss or tinnitus incurred
during military service is difficult to distinguish from the effects of
subsequent work in a noisy industry or participation in noisy recreational
activities, such as hunting. Furthermore, high-frequency hearing losses,
which are typical of noise exposure, are also seen at older ages, although
the patterns of age- and noise-related hearing loss are generally
indistinguishable until 60 to 70 years of age. Tinnitus, too, may develop in
response to factors other than noise exposure (e.g., head injury, middle ear
diseases, exposure to certain medications).
Full Story
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March 2008
Soldiers coming home with permanent hearing damage
and ringing in ears. Large numbers of soldiers and Marines caught in roadside
bombings and firefights in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming home with
permanent hearing loss and ringing in their ears, prompting the military to
redouble its efforts to protect the troops from noise. Hearing damage is the
No. 1 disability in the war on terror, according to the Department of
Veterans Affairs, and some experts say the true toll could take decades to
become clear. Nearly 70,000 of the more than 1.3 million troops who have
served in the two war zones are collecting disability for tinnitus, a
potentially debilitating ringing in the ears, and more than 58,000 are on
disability for hearing loss, the VA said.
Full Story
