When you suspect hearing loss, Bluegrass Hearing Clinic should be your first call. It’s never too late to get tested, and it’s always beneficial to get a feel for the current state of your hearing health. Taking steps to monitor and preserve your hearing health will help you battle hearing loss and stop it from worsening.
Discuss General and Medical History
Your past medical history paints a fuller picture about why hearing degradation may have occurred. Do you work in a noisy environment? Are any of your hobbies full of noise exposure on an extreme level? Just like your medical history, lifestyle is part of the blueprint to see where hearing loss took place.
Diagnostic Hearing Tests and Evaluation
To understand your current level of hearing, several tests will be performed to get accurate results. The type of tests needed are different for every individual that goes in for an evaluation. These will provide our staff with the diagnostics needed to paint a complete picture of your hearing health. With the results in hand, a hearing health professional can provide a recommendation or a plan for treatment.
Diagnostic Audiologic Evaluations
A diagnostic audiologic evaluation is necessary for users that fail the initial hearing screening. It is a way to measure hearing loss type, severity and overall physical ear condition. Age and past health determine the type of tests that need to be run. The basic tests are pure-tone, bone conduction and speech testing. When additional testing is required, you’ll be informed before proceeding.
Pure-tone and Bone Conduction Testing
Both pure-tone and bone conduction testing requires the use of a headset. Pure-tone finds the quietest tones you can hear at different frequencies. Bone conduction is a bit different as its results are meant to find out the type of hearing loss present in each ear.
Speech Testing
Speech testing works as a way to confirm the information provided by the pure-tone test. With the results from the previous exam, a real-world scenario is set up to test the identification of words.
Additional Tests
Outside of these three tests, patients can expect otoscopy and tympanometry. All tests serve the same purpose, and each successful one will get you one step closer to a referral or a treatment plan.
What Can I Expect During a Diagnostic Hearing Evaluation?
Testing is done in under an hour, and results are available immediately after. It’s important to make time to discuss your future with a hearing care provider. They will provide the necessary next steps to improve your hearing profile.
Hearing Loss Calculations
Age, health history and daily noise exposure are all part of the hearing impairment calculations. It is a way to identify what affects your hearing, and is a tremendous help in preparing an optimized treatment plan.