What are the symptoms of Acoustic Shock?
The typical symptoms of Acoustic Shock are: • Ear-ache and nausea • Headaches, jaw and neck pain • Hollow feeling in the ear • Fluttering noise in ear, leading to poor balance • Burning sensation to face and head • Tinnitus (ringing in the ear) and hearing degradation over time • Permanent sensitivity to loud noises in general, thus affecting lifestyle • Where inner ear membranes have been otherwise weakened (by ear infections or diving trauma) acoustic shock can cause tearing of the inner ear membrane Affected workers may then feel hypersensitive to loud sounds that previously would have caused no problems. The fear that a shriek might reoccur lowers their threshold even further, putting them at greater risk of injury if it happens again. This is even likely to affect co-workers, who may be apprehensive about the likelihood of an incident once they are aware that it has occurred within their telephone network. For more information on Soundshield please contact Polaris Firstpoint on 18
