Hearing tests are an essential part of your health routine. Every now and then, your doctor may ask you to take a hearing test. A hearing test is not always required when something is wrong with your ears. Sometimes, the doctor just wants to be sure that your ears work well.
You are more likely to get your hearing tested as you grow older. This is because hearing loss becomes more likely as you age. A hearing test at this point in life might be necessary once every few years. Audiologists also recommend having your hearing tested every 10 years until the age of 50 and every 3 years after that.
Why Would You Need A Hearing Test?
You may suspect that you have hearing loss, or you have trouble hearing people talk to you when they are in a crowded room, or they've been told they raise the volume on the TV way too high. You might not know that you have a problem, and you may not realize that you have hearing loss because it is a gradual process. This is why you should get your ears checked when your doctor says you should, even when you think you're fine.
There are many causes of hearing loss, such as:
- Being around loud noises often at work
- Mowing the lawn or using power tools
- Shooting guns or other weapons regularly
- Too much earwax
- Loud music
- Having an infection
- Getting hit on the head
- Genetics
If you don't do anything about your potential hearing loss, you might find yourself being left out of social events because you can't hear what is happening. You might also isolate yourself from your friends and family, and you have a higher chance of becoming depressed.
Do You Need a Hearing Test?
Regardless of your age or job, you should get a hearing test if you feel like you’re not hearing as well as you used to. You should also consider a hearing test as part of your routine checkup, especially if your occupation involves high noise, such as construction sites and restaurants.
If you’ve already confirmed hearing loss through testing, you should speak to your audiologist to know how often you should get re-tested and if you need to use hearing aids. Much like your vision, hearing can also change over time, and your hearing aids may require periodic adjustments to ensure they can serve your current needs.
What To Expect During Your Hearing Test
Hearing tests are conducted in different phases, and expectations might be different during each step since the audiologist will be conducting a different test.
Hearing Health History
When you visit a health hearing clinic for a hearing test, you will need to fill out a case history form. The paperwork will ask you a series of questions to help the hearing healthcare professional better understand your medical and hearing history and health.
In some clinics, the specialist conducting the test may ask you these questions and fill them in your records. There are many potential causes of hearing loss, and a hearing health history helps determine if you could have anything inherited or genetic in your family.
Medical conditions like allergies, head colds, and ear infections can also contribute to hearing loss. You may also be asked if you've experienced any trauma to the head or ears because of the possibility that this can result in temporary or permanent hearing damage.
In the last stage of the hearing history, the audiologist may want to discuss the symptoms you are experiencing and how they are affecting your daily life. They will want to understand your lifestyle and the types of work, hobbies, and social situations that are important to you. Once you complete the health history, the actual hearing tests can begin.
Getting A Hearing Test
Unlike many medical tests, hearing tests are painless and are mainly non-invasive, especially in a routine hearing test.
When you start the hearing test, you will be taken into a quiet, sound-treated room enclosed in a barrier designed to keep out any other noises that might affect your hearing exam scores.
You will be asked to wear headphones or soft earplugs connected to an audiometer, which will be used to conduct the test.
The room where you take the hearing test may also be equipped with specially placed speakers used for testing small children or people whose hearing needs to be tested while they're wearing hearing aids or cochlear implants.
Pure-tone Audiometry
This is one of the tests that will be conducted as part of your hearing test. It involves listening to tones at different pitches and volumes. The test is conducted in a sound-treated room. The audiologist will communicate with you and provide instructions through your headphones.
You will need to focus and listen carefully because you need to respond even if the sounds are soft and you can barely hear them. The purpose of this test is to test the softest sounds. The test also checks that you can hear each frequency tested.
Speech Audiometry
This is another component of most hearing tests. It uses recorded or live speech instead of pure tones. This test is also conducted in a quiet setting. The speech portion of the exam evaluates the softest speech sounds you can hear and understand.
During the test, you will be asked to repeat back the words you hear to see how well you understand them. Some practitioners may also use speech sounds to determine your most comfortable listening level and the upper limit of comfort for listening.
Speech in Noise and Words in Noise Test
This series of hearing tests is conducted outside the quiet room. You may be required to move to another room. The test replicates and quantifies your hearing ability and includes a Connected Speech Test. You may take one or more of these tests.
During these tests, you will listen to a speaker and say words and statements while a soundtrack plays increasingly noisy sounds.
The test will help assess real-world hearing ability, mimicking how you might hear in a restaurant or noisy grocery store. This information will help your audiologist customise your hearing needs and determine whether you need hearing aids. You might also take a similar test when fine-tuning the amplification levels on your hearing aids.
Bone Conduction testing
Not all hearing tests will include a bone conduction test, but others will. The purpose of this test is to determine if the hearing loss is conductive or sensorineural. If you have conductive hearing loss, the treatment is generally different.
The test is designed to bypass the outer ear and apply the tones directly to the cochlear. You will wear a headset on your mastoid bone just behind the ear, which will play the different tones and sounds.
The test helps diagnose problems with the inner workings of the ear, where the sound signal is converted and sent to the brain. If you need long-term treatment, hearing aids are often recommended.
Tympanometry
Your audiologist may also perform a tympanometry test to measure your acoustic reflexes. During the test, you will wear a soft plug that creates pressure changes and generates sounds. This will determine how well your eardrum is moving and will measure the reflexive responses of the middle ear muscles.
Testing for Hidden Hearing Loss
In some cases, hearing loss originates in the brain rather than the ears. This is known as hidden hearing loss, and it can't be detected using standard hearing tests. If you pass your hearing tests but feel that you can't hear well, you may have hidden hearing loss, which can be diagnosed by running hidden hearing loss tests.
What Happens If You Have Hearing Loss?
After the tests, the audiologist will review the results and discuss the outcome with you in detail. They will also discuss the details and severity of the results and recommend appropriate hearing aids based on your specific needs and budget.
If you need a hearing aid, the audiologist will also ensure it fits comfortably in your ear and will adjust it for optimal performance. When using a new hearing aid, you may experience an adjustment phase. It may take a while to adapt to the enhanced sounds, but the audiologist will help you with the adjustments.
After Your Appointment
After reviewing the hearing test results with you, the audiologist can help you determine the next best steps. If the test outcome is good, no additional intervention may be necessary, and you can be on your way and looking to your following assessment.
Most hearing tests only take a short time and have no downtime. You can complete the test in a few minutes and then get back to your normal routine.