World Hearing Day is focused on raising awareness on how to prevent deafness and hearing loss and promotion of ear and hearing care across the world. By celebrating World Hearing Day we will focus on the importance of safe listening as a means of maintaining good hearing across the life course. In particular, the attention should be focused on hearing loss caused by noise exposure and the harmful use of headphones and smartphones, and the importance of mitigating exposure to loud sounds.
The celebration’s goal of the Day is to share information and promote actions to prevent hearing loss and improve its care, as well as to highlight the importance of early detection of hearing damage.
On the occasion of the Day Prof. dr. Šekib Umihanić, head of the ENT Clinic, University Clinical Center Tuzla said that health professionals from the Clinic have been working on early detection of hearing loss for 20 years, which allows for timely reaction. In regard to that, our Clinic offers important surgeries in the provision of hearing health, i.e. cohlear implants surgeries, and 60 cohlear implantation surgeries have been successfully performed so far.
Current data suggest that approximately 5.0% of the world’s population have disabling hearing loss.
The prevalence of hearing impairment increases with age, as many as 25% of people over the age of 60 have hearing impairment. According to the World Federation of the Deaf, there are more than 70 million deaf people worldwide. A large number of haring loss could be prevented through public health actions and timely clinical interventions. It is estimated that over 60% of hearing loss in childhood could be avoided through preventive measures.
Prevention activities should be focused on:
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Education of mothers, children, adolescents to avoid places with noise;
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Avoidance or the rational use of ototoxic drugs;
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Timely/early diagnosis of hearing impairment and treatment of ear diseases;
- Vaccination against pneumococcal infection.
