Evaluation of the Auditory Pathway in Traffic Policemen

BACKGROUND: Traffic policemen working at heavy traffic junctions are continuously exposed to high level of noise and its health consequences. OBJECTIVE: To assess the hearing pathway in traffic policemen by means of brainstem evoked response audiometry (BERA), mid-latency response (MLR), and slow vertex response (SVR). METHODS: In this observational comparative study, BERA, MLR, and SVR were tested in 35 male traffic policemen with field posting of more than 3 years. 35 age-matched men working in our college served as controls. RESULTS: Increase in the latencies of waves I and III of BERA, and IPL I-III were observed. Compared to controls, the MLR and SVR waves showed no significant changes in studied policemen. CONCLUSION: We found that chronic exposure of traffic policemen to noise resulted in delayed conduction in peripheral part of the auditory pathway, ie, auditory nerve up to the level of superior olivary nucleus; no impairment was observed at the level of sub-cortical, cortical, or the association areas.