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What’s the Most Common War Injury? Hearing Loss
A fascinating article on NBC shows the incredible prevalence of hearing loss and tinnitus among U.S. armed forces personnel returning from conflicts abroad:
“You’ve been to a concert – you know how your ears are ringing afterward? It’s just like that my entire life,” Brogan said. “A lot of guys get home and they probably don’t even think about getting their hearing checked.
Changes in the noise exposure risks also appear to have contributed to the current epidemic of hearing damage and tinnitus:
“I suspect today’s generation of veterans – those who have been in a combat environment – … Continue Reading
Veterans and Tinnitus
Veterans, given their increased exposure noise-induced hearing damage, are at a significantly increased risk of developing tinnitus. Common exposure risks are typically explosions and gunfire. Being in the vicinity of warzone entails exposure to a variety of risks. Fortunately, various measures are oftentimes taken in order to prevent the development of hearing loss and associated tinnitus. Hearing protection is increasingly a standard that has been adopted by many professional armies. However, it’s not only combat-related noise trauma that can induce tinnitus – any type of constant exposure to a loud enough auditory stimulus can cause long term hearing damage. You … Continue Reading
The Association Between Tinnitus and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Here is a link to an interesting abstract drawing a link between Tinnitus and PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Researchers observed an interesting set of similarities between the way tinnitus and PTSD affect the auditory system:
Similarities between the way PTSD and tinnitus influence auditory behaviors include exaggerated startle responses and decreased loudness tolerance. Tinnitus loudness is often exacerbated by sounds that trigger PTSD-related anxiety.
This paper underscores the complexity of tinnitus: what once may have been viewed a simple problem affecting the ear has increasingly been shown to a highly complex pathological abnormality of the brain. As always, the scientific research on … Continue Reading