This audiogram does not exceed the age norm. Yet the PLH is compensatable as there is no baseline.
How is a decision taken of age vs noise?
Only Schilling Cats have a correction factor for age, but these categories are not recognized in law.
This employee was exposed to noise for 40 years. He didn’t have a baseline by the cut off date and on 10 February 2004 a screening audiogram was done with a PLH=10,6% (thus shift from baseline is considered to be 10,6 percentage points). Is this noise-induced hearing loss or presbyacusis? Is it compensatable? According to the Compensation Commissioner this is a sensori-neural hearing loss with 40 years of exposure to noise. It should be reported to the Compensation Commissioner who will adjudicate on the matter.