Flexible, Scientific and Creative : providers of tailor-made needs-based models of hearing healthcare.
At Cubex, we offer comprehensive hearing care programmes for companies that want to help their staff prevent hearing loss and improve hearing. With an international reputation for professional excellence, we are the ideal practice to provide your employees with a full range of hearing care solutions, whilst allowing you to meet any legal requirements and Duty of Care regulations.Our corporate hearing care programme is a great motivational and rewarding incentive, as well as a cost effective way for you to look after your employees.
Consists of 5 key service areas
Initial audiological assessment to include safety critical testing
Supply of hearing protection, hearing aids and audiological equipment
On-going care to individuals supplied with hearing aids
Assessment, recommendations and provision of on-going support to existing users of hearing systems supplied elsewhere
Provision of ‘onsite’ noise assessment
If you feel we could help any of your employees in this often overlooked area of Health and Safety then we would be delighted to meet you personally and discuss your needs in more details.
The Cubex Approach
Occupational medical standards are necessary to ensure that workers are fit to conduct safe and effective operations, given the specific task demands for each job. With respect to hearing, employees such as train drivers require a number of functional abilities. These skills include: speech communication, sound detection and sound localisation. In addition to this, such skills need to be at a functional level where one can successfully employ these in the presence of background noise. A sufficient level of functional hearing ability is needed from workers to prevent safety risks to themselves, to fellow workers, and to the general public (Laroche et al 2008)Current occupational hearing standards are primarily based on simple diagnostic measures of hearing, such as the absolute hearing threshold at specific frequencies or the pure-tone average (Coles & Sinclair 1988; Hétu 1993; Bhérer et al. 2002). This minimum safety criteria is outlined in figure 1. Figure 1.Unfortunately such measures do not assess the minimum hearing abilities necessary to function effectively in the workplace. This can be demonstrated by the fact that individuals with essentially identical hearing sensitivity may have a wide range of speech recognition abilities in noise (e.g. Smoorenburg 1992; Soli & Vermiglio 1999; Killion & Niquette 2000; Laroche et al. 2005). Models of real world auditory performance based solely on the audiogram would therefore predict the same speech communication abilities in the workplace for individuals with identical audiograms, and likewise for other auditory skills. Such a broad criteria lacks the accuracy to base employment decisions on and should not be applied to individual workers. It should also be noted that such criteria has been successfully challenged in courts and considered to be job discrimination in some cases (Laroche 1994)At Cubex, we offer a number of tests which can be used alongside conventional pure tone audiometry and free field audiometry which provide a much better understanding of how one hears in the presence of background noise. These include:
Listening Energy Index
Thorough ear examination
Test of middle ear function
Free Field testing
Pure Tone Testing including Extended High Frequency and Multi Frequency Audiometry
Speech Audiogram
‘Real World’ listening tests / Speech in Noise Tests
Enrolment in our Listening and Communication Enhancement Clinic
We feel that Extended High Frequency Audiometry, Speech Audiometry and QuickSIN are particularly important tests to accurately assess client’s needs.
Extended High Frequency Audiometry
The effects of noise exposure appear to impact the high frequencies more than mid or low frequencies. Extended high frequency audiometry is more sensitive than conventional audiometry and can be used to detect early signs of hearing impairment and monitoring hearing losses that may have been caused by noise exposure.High frequency is also used to monitor the effects of ototoxic medication.
Speech Audiometry
Rather than relying on a tonal stimulus, speech audiometry assesses the ability of an individual to discriminate speech. This gives a much better ‘real world’ perspective of the clients hearing loss. Furthermore it carries additional diagnostic information as it is a good indicator of where in the auditory system the hearing loss lies. This is important as the location of the hearing loss can relate to the functional benefit one will receive when aided.
Real World hearing tests
The number-one complaint we receive from people experiencing hearing loss is their inability to clearly understand speech in challenging acoustic environments yet most patient’s are tested with a pure tone.It makes sense to include a speech-in-noise test in the test battery. Not only does it provide an understanding of a person’s capacity to process speech in noise, the measure allows us to complete a functional forecast , provides valuable information to help with hearing aid selection and is used to demonstrate improvements in aided performance.
What our partners say
South West Trains have worked in partnership with Cubex for years to supply hearing aids to eligible safety critical employees. We have found them to be professional, customer-focused and reliable and are happy to continue working with them in the future. Ms Barbara Davenport, Head of Occupational Health, South West Trains