New Guides to the Evaluation of Korean Hearing Impairment in 2012 / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

The incidence of hearing impairment is increasing due to growth of the population of the elderly, industrialization and noise exposure. Evaluation of hearing impairment are frequently made in purpose of compensation, indemnification or welfare policy of the disabled. Evaluation of hearing impairment is a process to diagnose and to evaluate the disability under objective criteria. Several domestic and international standards have been proposed including legal acts such as the disable welfare law, industrial accident compensation insurance and the national pensions act. There are also medical counsel standards such as Korean academy of medical sciences disability evaluation standards, disability standards of American medical association and disability evaluation of McBride. In order to assess the hearing impairment fairly, thorough understanding about the difference of the purposes and standards of each guideline of hearing impairment is needed. Therefore in this article, the domestic and the international standards for the evaluation method of hearing impairment which was revised recently and their differences are discussed.