We are having a 'Get a Life' week at work soon, looking at work life balance and other such things. One area we want to raise awareness in is hearing loss etc. I have found an online hearing test on the RNID website but was hoping someone may know of an online video or similar that we could use to promote awarenss and things people can do to protect their hearing. Thanks in advance

Sad to say that I have to use two hearing aids (Led Zep and he Stones) so good luck and i hope they pay attention.

hopeful - In addition to encouraging people at your workplace to wear hearing protection when and where necessary, it's worthwhile advising them that they should try to control their exposure to excessive noise during leisure activities, e.g. when using personal headphones to listen to MP3 players and similar devices. Also, it's worth suggesting to employees that they relay the advice about excessive leisure noise to any offspring they have. Though teenagers tend not to heed advice from their parents, there's more chance of success with primary age children. Having depended myself on hearing aids for both ears since 2002, I can readily attest to just how frustrating hearing impairment can be at times. Though hearing aids have benefited from modern digital technology, it seems that no hearing aid, no matter how expensive/sophisticated it is, can replicate the effectiveness of a normal human ear. Also, though it's understandable that many people tend to think of volume as the critical factor in hearing loss, clarity of hearing is also a major factor, especially when trying to discern what people are saying. Many words in human speech sound very familiar and require good clear hearing to distinguish them. I'm lucky myself in that my hearing impairment (apparently due to unspecific disease/infection and/or genetic factors and not exposure to excessive occupational and/or leisure noise) and hearing aids are such that I have little problem hearing what people are saying when in reasonable proximity and in fairly quiet locations. However, this capacity is drastically reduced by increasing distance and background noise such as audience chatter, air conditioning or 'canned' music. It also explains why I usually sit on the front row during presentations at IOSH network meetings, etc. at venues which lack PA and/or induction loop systems.