Hearing Tests

Hearing Health Consultation

This is a casual conversation about your current hearing concerns and their possible causes. Typical questions include:

1. Has anyone else in your family had hearing problems?
2. Have you had any illnesses or injuries lately?
3. Whats kinds of medication have you taken lately?
4. Have you been exposed to loud noises at work or during leisure activities?

Ear Inspection

Next, your ear is inspected visually with a special handheld instrument called an otoscope. In some cases, debris or impacted earwax causes hearing loss. Remove the obstruction, and hearing returns to normal. An otoscope can also determine whether there’s damage to the ear canal or eardrum.

Hearing Tests

Next, a few tests will help us understand the nature of your hearing loss, for example:

• What pitches, both low and high, you can hear
• How well you hear and understand speech
• How well your eardrum moves
• How your middle ear and inner ear react to sound

If you have a hearing loss, you’ll receive an audiogram, which maps out what pitches you can hear at what volumes. If you need hearing aids, it acts like a prescription that tells your provider how to program your devices.

Treatment Discussion

Last, we’ll discuss the results of your evaluation. If your hearing loss can be treated with hearing technology, we’ll recommend technology that matches your distinct hearing needs. We’ll also discuss next steps, which will depend on your results and the recommended technology. If we determine there are referral needs, we’ll discuss those as well.