Recreational noise exposure and its effects on the hearing of adolescents. Part II: development of hearing disorders

Part II, continuation of a previous paper, describes the significant hearing threshold shift found during the third year of the long-term study, which continued to be present in the fourth year, in a number of adolescents classified as Subgroup 2, who showed a higher mean HTL in the middle and especially in the high frequency ranges than the rest of the studied adolescents, classified as Subgroup 1. In both subgroups, the subjects showed high participation in recreational activities; nevertheless, the adolescents in Subgroup 2 showed higher participation in some of them in the last year of the study. From the beginning of the study, the mean HTL of the adolescents in Subgroup 2 was higher than the mean HTL of the adolescents in Subgroup 1. The exposure to high sound levels during leisure activities can be a cause of permanent hearing damage among young people with 'tender ears'.