The 411 On An Audiometer Hearing Test

By Allyson Burke


If you feel like you might have trouble hearing, an audiometer hearing test might be the first thing that you will try out to find out the truth. In general, a doctor will test your hearing abilities with various devices first, including basic screenings and tuning forks. After that, he should have a pretty good understanding whether you are suffering from hearing loss. If this happens to be the case, then he should request for more thorough tests to be done.

This is what happens with audiometer screenings. A lot of the time, you will have to visit a specialist for this screening. The specialist in charge is known as an audiologist. To find out more about this screening, read on.

When it comes to this special screening, your audiologist will aim to find out how far your abilities go in terms of hearing. This usually involves a slew of tests instead of a single one, wherein you will be asked questions in order to gather important information behind your condition. Your medical history will be questioned before you go through the actual audiometer test, as well.

During this test, you will be required to wear headphones over your ears in order to block out other sounds that may be coming from the outside to distract you. Various sounds will then be sent into your ears. This is basically done to check out each individual ear and to see whether you are suffering hearing loss from just one of them or from both of them.

All of the sounds will go into your ears at different levels and frequencies. The aim of this is to find out whether you can actually hear those sounds and, if you do, where you can hear them. Your doctor might ask you to raise your hand whenever you hear a sound. You might be asked to raise the hand on whichever side of the body you can hear the sounds from, as well.

Sometimes, the sounds will be loud and other times, they will be faint. In other cases, there might not be any sounds at all, but don't worry too much when that happens. Doctors just need to find out which frequencies and levels you can hear properly when it comes to this.

By going through this test, doctors can find out how bad your hearing loss actually is. They will also figure out whether you need more hearing evaluations overall. So, make sure you take this test seriously and don't just play guessing games with it to make it seem like you can hear perfectly well.

An audiometer can definitely provide a ton of helpful information, so that doctors can gauge your level of hearing. From there, a specialist can then give you the necessary treatments for your hearing loss or assign more tests to be done in order to find out more about your case and the treatment decisions that you might need in the end.




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