What Happens During a Hearing Test?

A hearing test is the most effective way to gauge your ear health and to put to rest any concerns you might have. Whether you’re simply looking for a checkup, you experience warning signs like trouble understanding conversations, or you’re getting older and wary of age-related hearing loss, it’s a good idea to book one. To make you at ease, here’s exactly what happens during the average hearing test.

The questions you need to answer

Before you set foot in the office, you will be handed a questionnaire. Your hearing specialist might ask you follow-up questions as well. These questions are going to run down your medical and hearing health history, any symptoms and concerns you have, family hearing history, and perhaps environmental factors that could impact hearing. All of it is to help your hearing health provider better gauge what tests they should use and what they might be looking for.

The inspection

A visual test is always the first order of business once the questions are out of the way. Your hearing health provider will use a device known as an otoscope, which helps them get a closer look. It magnifies and lights up the outer and middle ear. As well as helping them pick up any noticeable signs of physical damage, they will also inspect for any signs of ear infections or earwax build-ups. These latter two conditions might need treatment before the test can begin as they can often interfere with the results.

The full test

There is a wide range of tests to help your hearing care professional figure out exactly what is going on with your hearing. Which of these they choose and which they do first might depend on the answers you have provided or any signs they noticed during the inspection. If they don’t get the answer they were looking for, they might run an exhaustive list of all the available tests. These include tone tests (seeing if you can hear a range of pitches and tones), speech tests (where your ability to pick up and repeat vocal words and phrases is tested) and inner ear health tests.

Running through the results

With the tests above completed, your hearing care provider will have a much more complete picture of your hearing health and should be able to give you a run through of your results. This might include telling you about the degree of hearing loss you are suffering, as well as recommendations of what to do next, including how to treat it and how to prevent further hearing loss. If you are in need of a hearing aid, you might get a free demonstration or a trial so you can get used to the experience of wearing one.

By and large, most hearing tests are much the same and a hearing care professional will be able to run you through it step-by-step. Now that you know what to expect, why don’t you book one and get the answers you’ve been wanting?