DPOAE fine structure for 12 symphony orchestra musicians

In a previous study the distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) fine
structure has been analyzed in 50 young normal-hearing subjects (see project
Prevalence of DPOAE fine structure). In this study the DPOAE fine structure was
determined and analyzed for two groups of subjects: 12 symphony orchestra
musicians and a control group of 12 non-musicians, having the same age/ gender
as the musicians. Only subjects, who did not have any known hearing problems,
participated in the study. Since the musicians are exposed to moderate levels of
sound from their work, they might have early noise-induced hearing losses. These
early hearing losses might be detectable in the DPOAE measurement before they
can be observed from the pure-tone audiometry. The purpose of this study was to
compare DPOAE fine structure characteristics of the three groups of subjects.
The DPOAE fine structure characteristics are similar for the group of students,
the musicians, and the control group. In general, the analyses of hearing
thresholds and DPOAE data thus lead to the same conclusions concerning the state
of hearing.

Supported by PhD scholarship by the Oticon Foundation and STVF/FTP, with
participation of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra.