What to Expect at Your Hearing Test

If you have any kind of hearing loss to any extent, you might be keen to ensure that you are as prepared for that hearing test as possible. There are many ways to make sure of that, but one of the most important things here is to ensure that you simply know what to expect at your hearing test. In this post, we are going to take a look at some of the major things that you can expect to take place when you have your hearing test carried out. As long as you are ready for these, you should be able to feel ready for the test in general.

Hearing Health History

First of all, you will probably be asked to provide a short history of your hearing health. As with any other medical issue, your audiologist needs to know as much about your history with hearing as possible. So that will include if you have ever had hearing loss in the past or what kind of treatment you might have undergone. The more information you are able to provide here, the easier it will be for the audiologist to get a full picture of your hearing health.

Pure-Tone Testing

Often, the first part of a hearing test will be the pure tone testing, which is where your hearing is checked to see what its full range is. You will put on a pair of headphones and then the audiologist will play sounds of various tones and volumes, asking you to indicate when you notice the sound change. Then they will produce a graph showing exactly how good your hearing is. This is useful information going forward, and sometimes it is enough on its own to move on and give treatment.

Bone Conduction Testing

However, there might also be a need for bone conduction testing, which might sound like a lot, but is actually a very simple procedure and one that audiologists do every day. With bone conduction testing, you are going to need to wear a device behind your ear, which the audiologist will then send sound through, to see how well your bones are conducting the sound. This is to see whether there are any such structural problems going on, and if so, there will be plenty that the audiologist can do about it to help.

Finally, your audiologist and you will discuss what has taken place, what the results were and what they mean and whether you are in need of any treatment or help at all. If you are, that will probably take the form of a hearing aid, which is a very effective means of assisting with hearing loss. They will take you through the main types and help you choose the best one, and then show you how to use it and look after it. They might fit it in the same session, or later that same day, depending. It is rare you would have to come back another day.