Flooring


Howrolling out the carpet can be acoustically sound


Unwanted noise interferes with normal activities such as sleeping or conversation and can diminish care resident’s quality of life and even health. Catherine Helliker, marketing manager of danfloor UK, discuses how floor coverings can help create a sound environment


Residential care homes can be busy places both day and night and when an environment is noisy it can lead to health problems such as tension, anxiety and reduced performance and productivity of staff. Noise can also damage eardrums and


with any element of hearing lose spatial orientation can be affected, which in turn can also influence one’s balance and stability and may increase the chance of trips and falls.


It has even been reported that a noisy


environment can create cardiovascular disturbances. The nervous system can be temporarily, and even permanently affected by noise, acting as a biologic stressor, triggering a negative response to the cardiovascular system and increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease.1 Understanding sensory change in


older adults, especially those living with dementia, and the way a building can be


designed and finished with various products to create an acoustically sound environment is therefore of critical importance.


Measuring sound There are two main ways in which noise and sounds are measured within a room. The first of which is sound impact and this applies to the sound produced when two solid objects collide. To measure impact a tapping machine creates a sound directly on the floor construction in a source room and then a measurement of sound is taken in the receiving room. The calculated sound pressure level


gives the floor an impact sound insulation rating. A typical example of sound impact are footsteps on a floor resulting in sound being transmitted through the floor construction and heard in the space below. Impact sound can travel through solid


structures and cavities and when the sounds are too loud or persistent it can be considered a form of psychological damage. The other sound measurement is


reverberation and this takes into account the number of seconds it takes for the reverberation of sound energy to die down to 60 decibels (dB), or one- millionth of its original value, from the instant the actual sound signal ceases. It is essential to create the optimum


reverberation time within a room. If the reverberation time is too long the communication of speech in locations such as living rooms can often be too hard to understand - if it is too short then voices may have to be raised. Reverberation times are determined


by the volume of a space and the type of reflective surfaces in the room. Hard surfaces can lead to long reverberation times and create unpleasant and echoey acoustic environments. For a short


10 www.thecarehomeenvironment.com• April 2020


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