Hearing Tests
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Is It Time for a Hearing Test?
Hearing loss is a sudden or gradual decrease in how well you can hear. It is one of the most common conditions affecting older and elderly adults. Having trouble hearing can make it hard to understand and follow a doctor’s advice, to respond to warnings, and to hear doorbells and alarms. It can also make it hard to enjoy talking with friends and family. All of this can be frustrating, embarrassing, and even dangerous.
Do you have trouble hearing in a noisy room?
Do you have more trouble hearing women than men?
Do you ask others to repeat themselves?
Do you avoid going out because you’ll struggle to hear?
Do you notice any ringing or buzzing sounds in either ear?
Testing
Tympanometry
Tympanometry is a test conducted by audiologists to check how well the middle ear system is working. A soft flexible probe is placed into the ear canal and measures the eardrum’s overall responsiveness to sound. Tympanometry is not a hearing test; instead, it measures how sound travels through the middle ear.
Pure Tone Testing
Pure tone testing for hearing loss is the gold standard for establishing the exact range of hearing ability or hearing loss. Pure tone testing determines hearing acuity or the quietest sound a person can hear. The client is presented with sounds in the right, left, or both ears through earphones.
Read More About Tympanometry
Tympanometry is an excellent way to determine if hearing loss is due to nerve damage or inner ear problems. A person’s tympanogram can tell a lot about their ability the health of their middle ear.
Common problems that can be diagnosed with tympanometry include a blockage of the Eustachian tube, eardrum perforation,
Read More About Pure Tone Testing
When the client hears a tone, he or she signals when the audiologist. Only one tone is presented at a time, with fading levels of volume at each successive presentation until the client can no longer hear the tone.
A person’s hearing acuity may be better or worse at different frequencies. For example, a person may be able to hear high frequency sounds at low volumes, but is unable to hear low frequency sounds at moderate volumes. Pure tone testing accurately measures hearing across the frequencies of human hearing.
Word Testing
Speech in Noise Testing
People with sensorineural hearing loss (“nerve deafness”) often lose the ability to discriminate human speech from background noise. Speech in noise testing is a way to evaluate how well someone can understand simple words or numbers presented in the midst of varying levels of noise.
Word Recognition Testing
Word recognition testing determines a client’s ability to recognize words that sound alike (i.e., phonemes). It tests the client’s best
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Since understanding speech over noisy backgrounds mimics circumstances commonly experienced in real life, it is more “realistic” than pure tone testing. For this reason, most audiologists recommend speech in noise testing as part of routine hearing aid evaluation testing protocols.
Speech in noise testing is non-invasive. The client is presented with pre-recorded sentences or phrases within different levels and types of background noise, such as other voices, environmental noise, or machine-generated noise. The more spoken words someone can correctly identify, the better her speech in noise hearing is.
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The test takes place in an audiologist’s office in less than 10 minutes.
Before a person receives a hearing aid, word recognition testing determines the best, unassisted speech recognition a person can achieve. After a hearing aid is placed and fitted, the test is repeated so that adjustments can be made to the hearing device, ensuring optimal performance.
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