Many remember taking a hearing test in their school’s gym or auditorium. Unfortunately, for many adults, that grade school test was the last time they had their hearing checked. As we get older, our risk of hearing loss increases. The condition affects approximately one in three people in the U.S. aged 65 to 74, and nearly half of those aged 75 and older.
Scheduling regular tests is the best way to catch hearing loss before it negatively impacts your life. Let’s take a look at what a typical audiology appointment entails to help you set expectations.
Steps of an Audiology Appointment
Your audiology appointment will typically include the following:
- Medical history. Your hearing specialist will review your symptoms and medical history to identify warning signs of hearing loss or other ear conditions.
- Pure tone test. During a pure tone test, you’ll sit in a quiet room and listen to beeps through a set of headphones. Whenever you hear a beep, you’ll press a button. The beeps will vary in volume and frequency to help determine which sounds you struggle to hear.
- Ear exam. Your specialist will examine both ears to look for blockages or other issues that could interfere with hearing.
Depending on your results, your audiology appointment may also include a speech-in-noise test or a tympanometry test:
- Speech-in-noise test. During a speech-in-noise test, you’ll listen to speech with background noise and repeat back or answer questions about what you heard. A speech-in-noise test looks for hearing loss or auditory processing disorder (APD), where your ears hear but your brain can’t process speech effectively.
- Tympanometry. A tympanometry test measures how well your eardrum moves. During the test, your specialist will place a small probe with a speaker, an airport and a microphone into the ear canal. The probe will send air and sound towards the eardrum, and the microphone will measure how well it moves in response.
After testing, your hearing specialist will give you your results. If you have hearing loss, they’ll classify it as mild, moderate, moderately severe, severe or profound. If you have hearing loss requiring treatment, they’ll walk you through your different hearing aid options to help you manage the condition.
Preparing for an Audiology Appointment
There are two ways you can prepare for an audiology appointment:
- Write down hearing issues. If you’ve noticed that your TV is louder than it used to be, you have more misunderstandings with your partner, or you can’t quite hear the barista at Sweet Tooth Café over the sound of steaming milk, note that down. Knowing the areas of your life that you struggle with hearing will give your specialist a better idea of your overall hearing profile and help them design the perfect treatment plan.
- Come with questions. If you have any burning questions about your treatment options, how you can communicate better or anything else that’s been on your mind, write them down so we can answer them before you leave.
For more information or to schedule your first audiology appointment with one of our trusted specialists, call Hampton Roads ENT ~ Allergy today.