Everything You Need To Know About The Different Kinds Of Hearing Tests

There are many reasons as to why hearing loss can occur and it is best to detect

these as early as possible so there is a better chance of preventing it all together. Physical injury, contracting a disease, illness or little things like ear infections can be the cause of hearing loss. Hearing impairment can be a disability a person is born or has grown up with, since the body sometimes don't form correctly.

It is obvious that even small things like a flu or a cold can affect a person's hearing. Astonishingly, taking medicines can very well give you loss of hearing as well as being sick. Hitting or bumping your head really hard doesn't just hurt, it can also lead to hearing impairment.

Someone who regularly exposes him or herself to loud noises or sounds at decibel levels that are far beyond normal is in danger of acquiring hearing loss. A few examples of this are construction work, emergency service sirens, car alarms, noise from appliances and even just noisy people. Noise pollution doesn't just mean common things such as the ones mentioned above, it can also mean more infrequent occurrences such as sounds from gunfire.

No matter what causes hearing loss, the easiest way to cure it is through prevention and the only way to prevent it is by first detecting it. Knowing about the hearing disorder early, gives doctors more flexibility when it comes to time to study and treat the ears with not so extreme measures. To detect hearing loss a person undergoes what is called a hearing test.

A person's hearing sensitivity or how well a person hears is detected through the use of an audiometer. An audiometer test setup is simply a soundproof booth where the patient sits in and wears headphones linked to an audiometer. The audiologist, pushes buttons on the audiometer to send sounds to the person sitting inside the booth.

The person inside the booth should respond at once and at first instance of hearing the sound. A graph of sound frequency against sound volume will be made to conclude the test. A simple glance of the graph by the doctor will uncover the specific frequencies and volume the patient is having a hard time hearing.

Besides hearing tests using the audiometer, there are also the Weber and Rinne tests which are almost always performed together to determine if the subject has Conductive hearing loss or Sensorineural hearing loss. Both tests involve the use of a tuning fork to determine the type of hearing loss. The Weber test is a simple and quick screening test for hearing loss while the Rinne test is performed to confirm the nature of hearing loss whether conductive or sensorineural.

The Weber test is performed by placing the tuning fork in the exact middle of the forehead. If the patient has normal hearing or equal hearing loss, then the sound heard will be the same for both ears. If the sound is heard differently in one ear than the other then the person is said to have asymmetric hearing loss.

The Rinne test is given after the Weber test to figure out whether the hearing loss is of conductive nature or sensorineural. The type of hearing loss and in which ear can also be determined by the tests. These two tests coupled with the audiometry test can also make the diagnostic more accurate.

by: Andrew Rogers.

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