Hearing test: the professional hearing test at the doctor or acoustician

Hearing test: the professional hearing test on site

If hearing loss is suspected, a professional hearing test should be carried out urgently to obtain certainty. Speed is of the essence, because the sooner hearing loss is treated with hearing aids, the better the chances of success. In this article, you can find out everything about the process and the evaluation of hearing tests.

Hearing test online

It is possible to carry out an online hearing test. This can usually be done in just a few minutes from the comfort of your own home. However, an online hearing test only provides an initial assessment and should not be seen as a substitute for a professional hearing test.

Professional hearing test: Hearing test at the doctor or acoustician

A professional hearing test at an ear, nose and throat specialist or acoustician usually takes about 30 minutes. First of all, the current hearing situation is discussed in a consultation, in which situations and environments hearing difficulties occur. This is followed by an examination of the ear and a series of tests to check the hearing ability.

Free hearing test: Carry out a hearing test

First, the ear, including the ear canal and eardrum, is examined using an otoscopy. This reveals, for example, whether there is any scarring or fluid build-up that impairs hearing. The actual hearing test is divided into two parts: tone audiometry and speech audiometry.

Tone audiometry hearing test

Headphones are put on for sound audiometry. The audiologist plays sounds at an increasing volume and the customer indicates as soon as they can hear the sound. This test is carried out for different frequencies and separately for each ear. The results of the measurement are recorded graphically in the tonaudiogram . The pain threshold can also be determined in this way: For this purpose, increasingly louder sounds are played and the customer indicates at what point they find the sound unpleasant.

After the air conduction has been tested in tonal audiometry, the bone conduction is tested using special headphones. The measurement procedure is identical, only the sound transmission in this case takes place via the bone conduction. The values are displayed in a bone conduction curve in the audiogram.

Language comprehension hearing test

For speech audiometry, ordinary headphones are once again put on. Single and multi-syllable words are played individually for each ear, which are repeated by the test subject. The process is repeated at different volumes. In addition, speech comprehension is tested via loudspeakers with short words in background noise. In the evaluation, the acoustician takes into account the percentage of correctly repeated words.

Hearing test results/evaluation

Hearing test audiogram

The audiogram shows all the recorded results in graphical form - separately for air conduction and bone conduction. This allows the values to be discussed directly with the customer. Not only the curves themselves, but also the relationship of the hearing curves to each other provide information on whether hearing loss is present and what type of hearing loss is involved. Your audiologist will discuss the next steps with you individually

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Normal hearing test

With normal hearing, the hearing curves of the audiogram are in a range between -10 and 20 dB. You can find out more about interpreting and evaluating audiograms here.