An Audiometer Can Help Gauge Your Level Of Hearing

By Allyson Burke


If you are starting to think that your hearing abilities aren't up to par to perfect standards, then an audiometer can help you test your levels of hearing. Generally speaking, though, doctors might use other tools to test your hearing abilities first, such as a basic screening or a tuning fork. Once they have a better understanding of what type of hearing loss you are facing, they may then request for a more in-depth evaluation of your ears.

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.

To start, the audiologist will thoroughly test your ear through various screenings. He may ask you a slew of questions to find out more about your hearing problems and might ask you questions about your medical history while he's at it. After that, a proper hearing test will then be conducted in order to figure out how much help you will actually need in the long run.

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.

Most of the time, these sounds will also come in at various kinds of frequencies or levels, as well. This is done to find out whether you can hear low sounds or high sounds or whether you can hear various sounds at all. To gauge your level of hearing, your specialist might ask for you to raise a finger or a hand on the side of whichever ear the sounds seem to be coming from for you.

Some sounds may be loud, while others may be faint. Sometimes, you may not hear anything at all. This is completely normal, though. Just make sure you let your specialist know exactly what you can hear, so that he can give you a proper evaluation that will benefit you in the end.

After all, your doctor will use the information from this test to figure out how to treat your hearing problems. The information derived from this test will also decide whether you still need more evaluations before moving to proper treatments. This is why it would be absolutely vital to be honest when it comes to this test. In other words, make sure you answer all of the questions honestly and accurately, no matter what.

Fortunately, an audiometer hearing test can give your doctor a great deal of information overall regarding your current hearing levels. From there, you can then visit a specialist to provide you with helpful treatment options or more tests in order to receive more information regarding your comfort levels and the treatment decisions that have to be made in the end.



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