Acoustical Challenges in Long Term Care facilities

Authors

  • Zohreh Razavi Stantec Consulting Ltd., 1100 -111 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, BC, V6B 6A3, Canada

Keywords:

Health care, Separation, Air flow, Design requirements, Ducting, Fire separation, Healthcare facility, Long term care, Plumbing Systems, Public areas, Speech privacy, Vibration design

Abstract

Providing satisfactory acoustical environments in healthcare facilities can be ensured by applying recommended minimum design requirements provided in Sound and Vibration Design Guidelines for Hospital and Healthcare Facilities1. However, there are still acoustical challenges within long term care facilities that should be addressed, such as: &bull Maintaining speech privacy between rooms and corridors with large undercut door openings for air flow; &bull Maintaining STC ratings of the demising walls where the ceiling plenum is utilized for ducting and plumbing systems; &bull Maintaining speech privacy between rooms and corridors while good speech intelligibility through corridors for caregivers to hear calls from residence inside the room is required. I will discuss the aforementioned issues experienced in one Long Term Care (LTC) facilities, including all challenges for improving acoustical separation between a room, holding a person with dementia who was screaming during days and nights, and the public area, TV room / eating room. Proving the steps taken to improve this acoustical separation is discussed including all challenges on how to not affect fire separation of demising walls and door.

Additional Files

Published

2012-09-01

How to Cite

1.
Razavi Z. Acoustical Challenges in Long Term Care facilities. Canadian Acoustics [Internet]. 2012 Sep. 1 [cited 2025 Feb. 13];40(3):96-7. Available from: https://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/2557

Issue

Vol. 40 No. 3 (2012)

Section

Proceedings of the Acoustics Week in Canada

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