02-HEARING ACUITY OF ANESTHESIOLOGISTS AND ALARM DETECTION. WALLACE et al, ANESTHESIOLOGY 1994. 188 anesthesiologists’ age groups 25-34, 35-44, 44-54, 55-64, over 75. CONCLUSIONS. Presbycusis is age related high frequency hearing loss and difficulty in sound discrimination with background noise. These two problems created a hindrance to alarm detection for certain individuals, and the ageing human ear may not be able to accurately detect some auditory alarms in the operating room. Alarm design should consider hearing acuity because high frequency alarms may go undetected.