Hearing Loss - When to See Your Health Care Provider

Once you have recognized the symptoms and understood the cause of hearing loss, then you can take the most important step in your aim to treat hearing loss - diagnosis. This step is crucial because this is your opportunity to verify whether you actually have hearing loss or some other conditions. Because your sense of hearing is such an important bodily function, you cannot afford to risk losing your sense of hearing permanently.

Professional Consultation

Once you have recognized the symptoms that are related to hearing loss, it is important to seek professional advice right away. Once you've seen your doctor, they will subject you to a series of tests and procedures to help them assess and evaluate your symptoms for proper diagnosis. This process aims to not only diagnose the extent of your hearing loss but also to determine which part of the ear is affected so proper treatment procedures can be identified.

Tests for Diagnosis

Screening tests are done to achieve both: to determine the severity of your hearing incapacity and to trace the source of your condition. Some tests are done without equipment while others require the use of specialized tools. The tests will provide your audiologist exact data in order to make proper diagnosis and recommend follow-up procedures.

Here are some of the most basic tests that are done to patients. Most of them are simple tests that can be completed between five minutes to half an hour.

Pure-Tone Audiometric Test

This is the most basic hearing test conducted on patients. Its primary purpose is to determine the type of hearing loss, whether conductive or sensory, and utilizes an audiometer. In this test, your doctor plays a series of tones of varying pitch and loudness while you are required to use a headphone. Whenever a tone is played, the patient is required to raise a hand or press a designated button.

Otoacoustic Emission (also known as OAE) Testing

This type of hearing test is designed for newborn infants to see whether they have an existing hearing problem. The procedure involves placing a tiny microphone into the infant's ear canal where the sound will be transported through and into the ear. The microphone will then serve as a measuring device to see how the inner ear responds to the sound introduced into the system.

Acoustic Immittance

This hearing test is quite similar to the procedures of the OAE testing, only that it is done for adult patients. A tiny probe is placed into the outer portion of the ear, then a slight pressure is applied into the probe to determine the eardrum's mobility. After that, loud sound is introduced through the probe to see how well the middle and inner ear reacts to the sound.

Speech Reception and Word Recognition Test

This is a more specialized type of hearing test that measures your ability to not only hear but understand speech. Your audiologist will either play an audio CD or read out loud a series of words. Then, you have to repeat the dictated words to see how well you are able to hear and understand them.

Auditory Brainstem Evoked Potential

This test involves the use of recording disks that are placed on the scalp and on each of the person's earlobes. Then, clicking noises are introduced via the headphones. The purpose of the disk is to measure and assess the hearing system's responses to the introduced noise, which is reflected by a graph.