Hear today, gone tomorrow: The importance of hearing tests

By Cindy Chan

Hear ye, hear ye — Connect Hearing works to ensure people’s ears are at their best for a long time.

Connect Hearing has been called many things in the past. It was once Island Acoustics, then Island Hearing. Now it is Connect Hearing, a company that offers hearing tests and solutions for people on Vancouver Island, the lower mainland and, more recently, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

According to Bob Casmey, manager of the industrial division, Connect Hearing has four — and soon to be five — trucks that visit job sites to perform mobile hearing tests on anyone who works around noise over 85 decibels. In fact, says Casmey, getting one’s hearing tested is the law for those who work in such loud conditions.

“We also do noise level surveys, in which we’ll go to specific locations of a company, whether stationary or not, and see how loud their environment is,” Casmey adds.

Within the hearing test vehicles are two sound booths per truck. Using audiometers, individuals are then exposed to certain tones, and their responses to the sounds are recorded. Casmey says the results are sent to WorkSafeBC for future reference.

“When someone does encounter hearing loss through their work, they can access the information and make a claim through the Workers’ Compensation Board,” Casmey says.

Connect Hearing recommends wearing the proper hearing equipment while on the job, such as headphones or the soft, foam earplugs. Prevention is key, because hearing loss cannot be reversed.

“In your cochlea, there are millions of tiny hairs,” Casmey says. “When a sound enters your ears, the hairs vibrate at certain points within the cochlea. Then the signals go to the brain and the brain figures out what the other person is saying.”

When hearing loss occurs, it means the hairs have “died” in certain parts of the ear. For example, Casmey says, it’s similar to when someone steps on a blade of grass. Eventually, the grass will spring back up, but that doesn’t happen to the hairs in the ear, leading to a gap in one’s hearing.

Casmey says it’s important for workers who work in noisy environments — whether it be a construction worker at a site, a welder in the shop or air marshallers at the airport — to make time for their annual hearing test because hearing loss occurs gradually. They might not know they have it until it’s too late.

“What happens is you lose certain frequencies and soft sounds,” Casmey says. “You’ll lose the ‘F’ and ‘S’ and ‘H’ sounds.”

Casmey says hearing loss doesn’t discriminate against certain populations; it all depends on the individual’s lifestyle. For example, he has met people in their 20s with hearing loss and other people in their 60s with perfect hearing.

With over 35 years experience, Connect Hearing is second to none when it comes to preforming hearing testing. With state-of-the-art equipment and new mobile units (complete with air conditioning for hot summer days), Connect Hearing makes the procedure quick and painless as possible.

Casmey and his team aims to help workers comply with WorkSafeBC regulations. They also provide other services such as custom molded hearing protection, respiratory fit testing and safety talks. For more information, visit connecthearing.ca/about-us/industrial.