Strategies for Prevention of Deafness

Topic Description :

Topic Description:
Hearing loss is the most common sensory deficit in humans today. As per WHO study significant auditory impairment prevalence is 6.3% in Indian population. As per NSSO survey, currently there are 291 persons per one lakh population who are suffering from severe to profound hearing loss (NSSO, 2001). Of these, a large percentage is children between the ages of 0 to 14 years. With such a large number of hearing impaired young Indians, it amounts to a severe loss of productivity, both physical and economic. An even larger percentage of our population suffers from milder degrees of hearing loss and unilateral (one sided) hearing loss. Hence it is important to have a structured plan for prevention of Hearing loss.

Learning Objectives:

1. To prevent avoidable hearing loss on account of disease or injury.
2. Early identification, diagnosis and treatment of ear problems responsible for hearing loss and deafness.
3. To medically rehabilitate persons of all age groups, suffering with deafness.
4. To strengthen the existing inter-sectoral linkages for continuity of the rehabilitation programme, for persons with deafness.
5. To develop institutional capacity for ear care services by providing support for equipment, material and training personnel.Long term objective: To prevent and control major causes of hearing impairment and deafness.