What You Ought to Know About Hearing Tests and Its Benefits
Hearing tests are essential to ensure that you do not have symptoms of deafness. Most symptoms include but are not limited to; trouble in listening to a speaker in a noisy public space, the feeling of fullness in your ears, fluctuating difficulty to hear, or sudden deafness. If you ignore these symptoms, they may lead to more serious complications.
In many cases, people don’t even know that they have a hearing loss. Mostly because they’ve simply gotten used to missing the softer sounds of speech, in other words, you don’t know what you can’t hear. Such deficiency in auditory perception can be caused by many environmental factors. Some great examples are people working with loud machines in a factory without using protective earplugs, as well as teenagers and children who listen to Mp3 music through headphones at very high volumes.
Thus, stressing the point that you might be suffering from minor deafness without noticing it, Hearing tests are simple and painless so why not consult with experts to make sure. They can prescribe treatments if necessary, discuss how hearing works in general and give guidelines on how you can prevent progressing levels of deafness.
Now, to be hesitant is normal, especially when you don’t have sufficient facts. That’s fine, in fact, it brings us to the main thought of this article – the need for more awareness of why people should make time to have hearing tests understand how the auditory system works and its primary benefits to a person’s well-being.
So, read further and you should get more understanding of the types of hearing tests-, the process involved and its true value. Let’s talk about your expectations first.
Things to Expect in a Hearing Tests- and the Benefits of Having One
1. The Talk
Your audiology specialist will do initial check-ups and ask probing questions regarding the history of your hearing health. There are so many potential causes of deafness. The history check will help pinpoint potential causes of your deafness. They will also check other areas of your medical history. Because apparently, symptoms for deafness can be very similar to symptoms experienced with other types of illnesses too. Moreover, allergies, head colds, ear infection or earwax can also be a possible cause of deafness.
All the information that you and your audiologist will discuss during the consultation will support your hearing tests results. Also, your specialist can use this information to determine the type of hearing tests that you may require.
2. The Procedure for Adults
Hearing tests should be painless and non-invasive. For the most part, the specialist will ask you to enter a sound-treated booth where the assessments will be done. In the booth, you will be wearing headphones connected to an audiometer. The audiometer is a device that specialists use to conduct the assessments. You will receive easy to follow instructions before the assessment will start.
Type of Tests
- Tone Audiometry – a tone will play through your headphones in different pitches and volume. Then, as you listen carefully, you will have to respond by pressing a button or raising your hand.
- Speech Audiometry- either your audiologist will speak, or a recorded message will be played through the headphones. Then you will have to repeat the words to the best of your ability.
The main goal for these assessments is to determine your listening threshold. In this way, your audiologist can determine the level of your hearing loss. After the test, the audiologist will explain the results to you and will further discuss treatment options available to you.
3. The Procedure for Infants and Children
A kid’s ear is very sensitive and they respond differently to sound. So, special hearing tests are better for them. This is also due to the fact that typical observation methods more often miss mild auditory perception problems. These so-called mild problems can actually lead to even worse problems in a child’s development. It can affect speech, social ability and academic progress.
4. The Results
After the tests, the results will be presented through an audiogram. It is a graph which x-axis represents the frequency or the pitch of the sound, whilst its y-axis represents the intensity of the volume of the sounds. The results are plotted in decibel units. Each ear will have a line representing it. And in each line are interconnecting dots representing each tone you heard. The results will be variant to the following levels:
- Normal (0 to 25 dB HL)
- Mild (26 to 40 dB HL)
- Moderate (41 to 70 dB HL)
- Severe (71 to 90 dB HL)
- Profound (91 dB HL and up)
Now that you know what these assessments are like. It’s time to motivate you by letting you know the real value in taking the assessment. Here are the:
5 Benefits of Taking Hearing Tests
1. Better Social Interactions
It’s difficult to not be part of your closest friends’ conversations and social interactions, but it’s even more difficult when you are just standing there, part of the group but you are just not able to hear what everyone is saying. Thus, making you miss out on the important points of the conversation, isolating you from the group.
Now, you can ask people to repeat what they say but doing so may trigger negative reactions from them at some point. Therefore, it’s better to get the right assessment and be treated appropriately, so you will not have to be isolated from your social groups. Do yourself a favour and save yourself from the psychological and emotional stress of progressive deafness.
2. Keen Attention to Sounds
Hearing tests eventually lead to treatments. Although there is no definite cure for some types of hearing loss, being able to hear the little things that you usually miss out in a conversation will do wonders for improving your overall quality of life.
3. Making Sure You Hear Things Right
English is a funny language. Missing out a word or two, or even intonations and enunciations can lead to miscommunication. After participating in hearing tests- and receiving the right treatment, you should then be able to better understand people, enabling you to better communicate with them too.
4. Family Relationships
More often, your loved ones are the first ones that will notice signs of deafness from you. If your hearing is not as sensitive, you will not notice impairment in your auditory perception as much as those who really care for your well-being. Deafness does not occur in a vacuum and if left untreated, can have a negative impact on your relationships, regardless of how minor you perceive it to be. Getting back the ability to hear things right, will provide you with greater opportunities for spontaneous and unscripted connections with the people you need to communicate most within your life.
5. Identifying Other Complications
In other cases, deafness is not the sole culprit, but, rather–a symptom. If you decide to go ahead with a hearing test- your specialist will be able to prescribe the most appropriate treatment options for you if required. Your audiologist will also discuss any potential lifestyle issues and health risks associated with your level of deafness.
Have your hearing tests soon to ensure that you get the benefit of advice from a specialist audiologist. Again, disregarding the symptoms can lead to more serious problems. It’s better to know early than be sorry later.
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You will find more information as you browse the website, especially if you check out for more blogs and publications in the future. If you need any audiological tests done, especially for your kids, trust our experts.
Also, are you interested in getting hearing aids? Learn everything that you should know, and read this article: Learn Everything You Need to Know About Hearing Aids.
