Your medical history Before proceeding with your hearing tests, we will ask you some questions about your medical history, which may include: Noise levels you have been exposed to Possible physical damage to your ears Past illnesses or other conditions which may have affected your hearing - Medications that may have affected your hearing
Understanding your medical history helps us to decide the best way to assist you with your hearing loss.
Looking into your ear  After recording your medical history, wel will look into your ear using an instrument called an otoscope. An otoscope is a cone-shaped instrument with a light on one end, and it helps your specialist view the inside of your ear.
With an otoscope, we can determine if there are any abnormalities in your ear canal or with your eardrum.
Pure tone tests After one of our hearing care professional looks inside of your ear, the next step is to place you in a sound booth. The sound booth, or sound room, ensures that outside noises will not interfere with your hearing test. Pure tone testing helps us, your professional, determine the threshold at which you hear different frequencies. For the pure tone test, we will as you to either (a) insert a small set of earplugs or (b) place headphones over your ears. The ear plugs or headphones will deliver a series of tones into your ears. An audiometer electronically generates the "pure tones" which will vary in tone and volume. Whenever you hear a "pure tone," you will either raise your hand or push a button to indicate that you hear it. For this test, your professional tests each ear individually. For the next set of pure tone tests, we will have youl place a small bone conductor behind your ear. The bone conductor transmits sound through bone vibration to the cochlea of the inner ear, bypassing the middle and outer ear. This set of pure tone tests helps us, your hearing professional, determine your type of possible hearing loss.
Speech tests After the pure tone tests, your hearing health care professional will give you speech tests. You will be taking this test in the sound booth, just like the pure tone tests. For the speech tests, your professional is trying to determine the level at which you can detect and understand speech. You will hear a series of words that you will be instructed to repeat. Some of the words will be 2-syllable words, and the words will become softer as the test proceeds. Next, you will be asked to repeat a set of 1-syllable words; however, the volume of these words will stay the same.
Impedance test (of the middle ear) We will also most likely check your middle ear using an impedance test. For this test, your professional will place a probe inside of your ear. Then your audiologist will increase and decrease the air pressure on the probe while presenting a tone. The results will be generated into a graph. Depending on the results of the pure tone, speech, and impedance tests, our professionals may want to perform other hearing tests. The results of these tests will be presented to you in a paper, graph, or report format. And your professional will interpret them for you.
Audiograms A chart called an audiogram shows the results of these hearing tests. An audiogram is a graph with red Os and blue Xs connected with little lines. The Os represent the right ear and the Xs represent the left ear. Marks near the top of the graph indicate better hearing and marks near the bottom of the graph indicate poorer hearing. Across the top or bottom of the audiogram are frequency numbers ranging from 125 Hz (a very low tone) to 8,000 Hz (a very high tone), while the numbers goingdown the side of the graph represent hearing level. Below is a sample audiogram: 
Along the side of the graph, a series of decibel (dB) numbers indicate loudness. Very soft sounds are at the top (-10 dB or 0 dB) and loud sounds (110 dB) are at the bottom. Zero decibels (0 dB) is the softest sound a person with normal hearing ability can perceive 50% of the time. Normal conversation usually occurs at approximately 55 dB. Your audiogram indicates: - Which is the better ear;
- Your level of hearing loss; and
- The frequencies (in Hz) at which you hear best.
The speech tests indicate test reliability and/or where in the hearing system you could have problems. Your professional will take the time to explain your test results. If you do not understand something, please do not hesitate to ask them to explain in layperson's terms. |
