Abstract
An experiment was carried out in which the level of noise-intolerance in patients with a Whiplash Associated Disorder (WAD) was compared to healthy matched control subjects. In addition, the relationship between state-dependent factors (as headache, neck pain, fatigue and tension) and noise-intolerance level was investigated. Twenty-eight WAD patients and controls were exposed to state-measurements and noise-intensities ranging from 57 to 95 dB before and after a mental stress task. WAD patients were more intolerant to all noise-intensities than healthy subjects. This intolerance was increased with increasing noise-intensity, while noise-intolerance was not increased by the execution of a mental stress task. These results confirm the subjective complaint of WAD patients with respect to the intolerance to everyday sounds, in the presence of normal hearing. In accordance with the hypothesis, a positive association was found between the increase in headache and the increase in noise-intolerance for moderate intensities. Besides headache, gender is related to noise-intolerance. More research is needed in order to get more insight into the relationship between noise-intolerance and possible other (neuro)psychological/physiological factors.
