The 411 On An Audiometer Hearing Test

By Allyson Burke


If you feel like you might have trouble hearing, an audiometer hearing test might be the first thing that you will try out to find out the truth. In general, a doctor will test your hearing abilities with various devices first, including basic screenings and tuning forks. After that, he should have a pretty good understanding whether you are suffering from hearing loss. If this happens to be the case, then he should request for more thorough tests to be done.

This is where an audiometer would come in extremely handy. This test cannot just be done by any random doctor, though. In fact, a lot of the time, a specialist will be assigned to conduct this test on you. This specialist is called an audiologist and will guide you through every step of the way in order to help treat the problem at hand.

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 have to wear headphones that fit well over your ears in order to block out sounds that come from outside of the room that you are in. After that, different sounds will go into your ears one by one. The aim of this test is to check each individual ear since loss may occur in a single ear or in both at the same time.

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.

By going through this test, doctors can find out how bad your hearing loss actually is. They will also figure out whether you need more hearing evaluations overall. So, make sure you take this test seriously and don't just play guessing games with it to make it seem like you can hear perfectly well.

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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