Do you know what your ‘hearing number’ is?
Photo: guoya/gettyimages
The creator of a new app that measures the lowest audible sound a person can hear says this information is an important health measurement.
“Many of us track simple metrics about ourselves like our blood pressure and our step count, but people have never had a way to measure their hearing in the same way,” said Frank Lin, lead creator of the Hearing Number app and director of the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health.
The app measures the softest speech sound a person can hear. Separate numbers are registered for each ear, and they range from -10 to 85 decibels. A higher number means a person will have greater difficulty hearing.
“By knowing their hearing numbers, people can understand this important aspect of their heath, track the changes to their hearing that occur naturally over time, and know when to use technologies to protect their hearing and hear better,” Lin said.
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