Pilot study of Otoacoustic Emission based Hearing Assessment of Classical Musicians

A long-term collaboration with the Royal Academy of Music has allowed exploratory hearing assessment techniques to be trialled. Since the introduction of the UK's Control of Noise at Work Regulations research has been undertaken to establish the hearing acuity of more than 6000 students. Initially standard pure tone audiometric screening was used for all enrolling students, but since 2021 this has been supplemented with otoacoustic emission-based hearing assessment, n=995. This approach assesses outer hair cell function, and hence can be used to estimate hearing damage at the earliest possible stage using Hearing Coach firmware/software on Path Medical instrumentation. Repeat results showed that otoacoustic emissions had excellent consistency between assessments, n=8 compared to pure tone audiometry.