The past decade has witnessed an unprecedented public concern about the effects of high noise levels. The concern has mostly resulted from the increased noise levels of aircraft and the annoyance which that noise can cause to an individual exposed to it regularly. An effect of high level noise which has also resulted in enormous concern, but mostly out of the public-eye, has been that of noise induced hearing loss. Throughout industry in the U.K. alone there is an estimated 2 million people subjected to noise levels sufficiently high to endanger their hearing if regular exposure continues over a period of years. In order that these people may be protected from eventual partial or complete deafness their hearing acuity must be measured at regular intervals. The general title of the techniques used for making this measurement is audiometry. In industry there is a growing requirement for accurate and reliable but fast and simple-to-use audiometric equipment to cope with the large numbers of workers requiring regular examination. As a result of recent advances in the design and performance of digital computers intended for control applications the decision was made to investigate their possible use in routine audiometry and in particular in an industrial audiometric unit. Initially in this thesis, an extensive review of the existing audiometric techniques as used in hearing conservation programmes is given. In addition, deficiencies in the methods presently used are highlighted and discussed to reveal possible suitable areas for the application of computer techniques. As a result of this work a new concept of a screening audiometer is evolved in the form of an adaptive screening instrument capable of adjusting its measuring technique to produce optimum results from each subject and of performing much of the record keeping and result-scanning presently done by hand. To substantiate this theoretical work the proposed audiometer system was built on a computer situated in the University. A series of examinations were performed using the system and the results compared with others obtained from the same people by a conventional method. The two sets of results agreed to within acceptable limits and the degree of personal attention required to administer the test was greatly reduced.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:463658 |
| Date | January 1976 |
| Creators | Lowe, Lawrence |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/57224/ |
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