Auditory demands and capacities for hearing impaired employees.

Researcher(s): A. Goedegebure, PhD., M. van Beurden, E.E.,

M. Krone
Supervisor(s): prof. W.A. Dreschler, PhD.

Background:
For a thorough approach of the problems of hearing-impaired employees the Expertise centre Hearing & Work (‘Gehoor & Arbeid’) has been founded. The Expertise centre Hearing & Work is a collaboration of the audiological centres of the Academic Medical Centre (University of Amsterdam) and the Free University (VUmc), the Coronel Institute (AMC/UvA), and the Dutch Centre of Occupational Diseases (NCvB).
The goal is to concentrate the relevant knowledge, improving the co-operation between occupational health services and audiological centres, stimulating research and development of new instruments, and activities in the area of pevention.

Aim:
The projects aims to structure the occupational health care co-operation for hearing impaired listeners in their professional environment and building a protocol with sufficient attention for (partly newly developed) functions tests, a broad psychosocial anamnesis and examination of the work place (e.g. by performing an ARBO-STI measurement).

Method:
With support of the foundation Institute GAK a special occupational health care consultation has been constructed with a protocol for communication disorders in the working environment due to hearing impairment. The components of this protocol are partly new developments and are being evaluated with 60 patients. Protocol, health care consultation, and advice have a multidisciplinary character (audiologist, psychologist, occupational health care consultant)

Results:
All parties experience a clear added value of the structured collaboration according to a protocol. For the protocol we developed the following new instruments: an extensive psychosocial anamnesis, a test on signal recognition and a STI-measurement, specially targeted to investigate the acoustical environment at the workplace (a measurement of the combined effect of background noise and echoes).

Future research:
From the support offered by foundation Institute GAK the protocol can be applied to 60 subjects. The results will be analysed and documented in a report scheduled for the summer of 2005.


Home Onderwijs Wetenschap Research (EN)
General Otology Prevention of hearing loss Auditory profile Rehabilitation Hearing at work Auditory demands at work Recognition of warning signals Publications Presentations	Auditory demands and capacities for hearing impaired employees. Researcher(s): A. Goedegebure, PhD., M. van Beurden, E.E., M. Krone Supervisor(s): prof. W.A. Dreschler, PhD. Background: For a thorough approach of the problems of hearing-impaired employees the Expertise centre Hearing & Work (‘Gehoor & Arbeid’) has been founded. The Expertise centre Hearing & Work is a collaboration of the audiological centres of the Academic Medical Centre (University of Amsterdam) and the Free University (VUmc), the Coronel Institute (AMC/UvA), and the Dutch Centre of Occupational Diseases (NCvB). The goal is to concentrate the relevant knowledge, improving the co-operation between occupational health services and audiological centres, stimulating research and development of new instruments, and activities in the area of pevention. Aim: The projects aims to structure the occupational health care co-operation for hearing impaired listeners in their professional environment and building a protocol with sufficient attention for (partly newly developed) functions tests, a broad psychosocial anamnesis and examination of the work place (e.g. by performing an ARBO-STI measurement). Method: With support of the foundation Institute GAK a special occupational health care consultation has been constructed with a protocol for communication disorders in the working environment due to hearing impairment. The components of this protocol are partly new developments and are being evaluated with 60 patients. Protocol, health care consultation, and advice have a multidisciplinary character (audiologist, psychologist, occupational health care consultant) Results: All parties experience a clear added value of the structured collaboration according to a protocol. For the protocol we developed the following new instruments: an extensive psychosocial anamnesis, a test on signal recognition and a STI-measurement, specially targeted to investigate the acoustical environment at the workplace (a measurement of the combined effect of background noise and echoes). Future research: From the support offered by foundation Institute GAK the protocol can be applied to 60 subjects. The results will be analysed and documented in a report scheduled for the summer of 2005.