Director hopes for better awareness of hearing problem
SIBU: Sibu Hospital director Dr Ngian Hie Ung hoped there will be better awareness of hearing problem among the community and more people afflicted by this ailment will seek treatment early.
She said hearing loss was one of the most common presentations of patients to the hospital’s Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist Clinic here.
“Despite that, we believe it is under diagnosed.
“It affects one to two in 1,000 new-borns and one in 50 babies with risks such as prematurity, birth weight below 1.5kg, craniofacial dysmorphy, familiar hearing disorders, infection developed during infancy, intratauterine infections caused by viruses during the first five months of pregnancy and treatment with ototoxic or teratogenic drugs,” she said.
She said this when officiating at a ‘Hearing Week’ programme at the hospital yesterday.
Dr Ngian said the programme’s objectives were to create awareness of the common causes of hearing loss among children and adults and to promote early treatment so proper treatment could be instituted for the underlying causes.
She said a study conducted by a hospital in the country showed that 0.04 per cent of infants screened suffered from hearing loss. The study, she said, was only for babies.
“Loss of hearing can be due to many causes and they are broadly categorised as primary and secondary causes.
“Primary causes included congenital abnormalities, infection of the middle or inner ear and age-related while for secondary causes they could be drug and chemical induced, cancer and unhealthy noise exposure,” she explained.
She said otitis media with effusion (OME) or glue ear was common among children, with studies in USA and Europe showing 50 to 80 per cent of children being affected by OME by the age of four but prevalence declined beyond six.
“Risk of OME is increased with passive smoking, bottle feeding, low socio-economic group, frequent upper respiratory tract infection and exposure to other children.
“Presentation can be subtle, not painful and hearing impairment is usually mild and often identified when parents express concern regarding change of child’s behaviour, performance in school and linguistic skill development,” she said.
She said there was still lack of awareness of occupational related hearing loss with the use of hearing protective equipment either not considered by employers or not adhered to by workers.
Hearing conservation programme should be in place for those working with persistent noise exposure of more than 85 decibels, she said.
For age-related hearing loss, she said it was common but many do not seek treatment.
She said Sibu Hospital had improved on the hearing loss assessment since 2008.
In 2010, she said, there was added device for detection especially among infants.
“Currently with the resources we have, we only managed to screen the hearing of high risk infants.
“We hope in future we could extend screening for all infants so treatment and hearing aids can be offered within the first three to six months of a child’s life or else the detection is usually delayed to two to four years.
“Hearing loss among children not only affects their linguistic skill and social interaction but also their academic development which has a lot of direct and indirect economic implications,” she said.