ABSTRACT
Patients who have worked for many years with weaving looms, papermaking machines, boilers, sheet metal, riveters, jackhammers, chippers, and the like, nearly always have some degree of occupational hearing loss. However, many other patients have marked hearing losses that could not possibly have been caused by their minimal exposures to noise. Almost every patient working in industry can claim that he/she has been exposed to a great deal of noise. It is essential, especially in compensation cases, to get more accurate information by obtaining, if possible, a written work history and time-weighted average of noise exposure from the employer. If a physician does not have first-hand knowledge of the noise exposure in a patient's job, definitive diagnosis should be delayed until such information is made available.
