The 411 On An Audiometer Hearing Test

By Allyson Burke


If you are starting to think that your hearing abilities aren't up to par to perfect standards, then an audiometer can help you test your levels of hearing. Generally speaking, though, doctors might use other tools to test your hearing abilities first, such as a basic screening or a tuning fork. Once they have a better understanding of what type of hearing loss you are facing, they may then request for a more in-depth evaluation of your ears.

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.

When it comes to this special screening, your audiologist will aim to find out how far your abilities go in terms of hearing. This usually involves a slew of tests instead of a single one, wherein you will be asked questions in order to gather important information behind your condition. Your medical history will be questioned before you go through the actual audiometer test, as well.

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.

All of the sounds will go into your ears at different levels and frequencies. The aim of this is to find out whether you can actually hear those sounds and, if you do, where you can hear them. Your doctor might ask you to raise your hand whenever you hear a sound. You might be asked to raise the hand on whichever side of the body you can hear the sounds from, as well.

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.

The information taken from this will tell your doctor about the kind of potential hearing loss you might have. It may also pinpoint whether you are in need of more thorough evaluations of your hearing abilities. As such, you should take your sweet time when it comes to this test and make sure that you answer everything accurately instead of guessing things.

An audiometer can definitely provide a ton of helpful information, so that doctors can gauge your level of hearing. From there, a specialist can then give you the necessary treatments for your hearing loss or assign more tests to be done in order to find out more about your case and the treatment decisions that you might need in the end.




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