Patent ID: 8311228

Claim:
A method for monitoring a sound pressure level at an ear comprising: receiving a sound at the ear; converting the sound into an input audio signal; sampling a sound pressure level of the input audio signal during an epoch including a plurality of time samples; determining whether the sound pressure level is at a minimum threshold; determining a current sound pressure level dose as a function of the sound pressure level sampled during the epoch; determining a cumulative sound pressure level dose as a function of the current sound pressure level dose and a previous sound pressure level dose; and adjusting a duration of the epoch based on the sampled sound pressure level to form an update epoch, wherein the duration of the epoch is: decreased when a rate of change of the sampled sound pressure level is greater than a predetermined threshold or the sampled sound pressure level is greater than the minimum threshold, to decrease a number of the time samples during the update epoch, and increased when the rate of change of the sampled sound pressure level is less than the predetermined threshold or the sampled sound pressure level is less than the minimum threshold, to increase the number of the time samples during the update epoch.