Most people aren’t proactive about their hearing health and probably haven’t had a hearing test since grade school because it’s generally not part of a routine adult physical. Fortunately, a professional hearing specialist can uncover a wealth of information from a hearing test which can be used to both identify any hearing loss and help evaluate whether utilizing treatments like hearing aids is effective.
You might not get a lollipop after your complete audiometry test, which is more involved than you probably remember from your childhood, but you will get a greater understanding of the health of your hearing. There are three prevalent kinds of hearing tests, each of which will provide different perspectives about your hearing.
Pure tone testing
One factor that we use to measure sound is the intensity or loudness which is measured in decibels (dB). Tone, what we conversationally think of as pitch, is another key component. At the lower end of the tone spectrum, a low bass sound clocks in between 50 and 60 Hertz (Hertz, or Hz for short, is the unit of measurement related to tone or pitch), with normal speech ranging between 500 and 3,000 Hz. 20 to 20,000 Hz is the range of frequencies that a healthy human ear can hear.
With a pure tone hearing test, your hearing specialist will have you put on a set of headphones which are hooked up to an audiometer. Another device that your hearing specialist may use is called a bone oscillator which simply measures how well sound is conducted by your bones. Much like that familiar hearing test from your youth, you press a button or raise your hand when a tone sounds either in your left ear or your right ear.
We’ll track the minimum volume required for you to hear each sound. In other words, this test assesses how well your ears function: What range of sound you have problems hearing (which can be a key indicator of whether you’d benefit from hearing aids), and whether you are suffering from hearing loss in both ears equally or if one ear is worse than the other.
Speech audiometry
This test also uses headphones, but instead tracks your ability to hear words being spoken. In some cases, you’ll be asked to repeat recorded words that are spoken along with background noise. Your hearing specialist will, in other instances, have you repeat words they are saying, but their mouths will be hidden from view.
Because you can’t see the speaker’s mouth, you won’t have any visual cues to help you, and because they are only speaking single words, you won’t have any context to help you. Words that rhyme, let’s say crime, time, dime, and climb, can be challenging for individuals suffering from high-frequency hearing loss to differentiate.
Speech audiometry tracks your ability to make sense of what you’re hearing as opposed to tone testing which calculates how loud certain sounds have to be in order to be heard. Word recognition testing can also aid in determining whether hearing aids may help.
Immittance audiometry
Okay, these can be a little uncomfortable, but shouldn’t cause pain. Tympanometry artificially alters the pressure within your ear by pushing air in with a small inserted probe. A graph readout will permit your hearing specialist to identify if there’s an issue with your eardrum like earwax impaction or a perforation, and how well your eardrum is functioning.
Your ears have reflexes that are checked by a similar probe. Muscles in your ear automatically contract when you are exposed to loud sound. Identifying the noise level required for this reflex can help a hearing specialist measure the extent of hearing loss. Individuals with extreme hearing loss don’t demonstrate any reflex.
Though immittance tests are most helpful in diagnosing conductive hearing loss, problems with the eardrum and/or little bones inside the ear, because these can occur at the same time as age- or noise-related hearing loss, it’s essential to include to know everything that’s going on with your ears.
Are you having trouble hearing? Get it tested! If you have hearing loss or tinnitus, we can help educate you on how to maintain healthy hearing, and what your possible treatment options may be.