By taking a hearing test, you're taking the first step toward bettering your hearing health – and your entire health and well-being. 

Hearing exams are straightforward, quick, and painless, and they provide crucial information about your hearing ability. As with any test, we recognize that there may be some apprehension regarding the procedure. Here, we'll walk you through the steps of a hearing test with us.

We’ll Need You to Gather Some of Your Medical Information

Gather information about your own and your family's medical histories. If you are taking any medications that affect your hearing, bring a list with you to your appointment. 

Consider your everyday activities, hobbies, and routine. If you need hearing loss treatment, these lifestyle variables are crucial. Make a note of any times or situations where hearing is more challenging than usual.

A Consultation with Our Audiologist

Medication, intense noise exposure, and even a regular cold can all impact your hearing ability. You'll meet our Audiologist, Dr. Bogue, when you first arrive. We will review your medical history, medications, and conditions that may be affecting your hearing. 

It's critical to notify us if you've recently been exposed to loud noises. We will also go over your daily schedule, physical activities, occupational information, and other pertinent details with you since this information will come in handy later.

An Ear Examination

We will inspect your ear canal and eardrum with an otoscope. This is done to rule out infection, damage, or blockage as a cause or influencing factor for hearing loss by examining the outer and middle ear. We will also examine your ears for impacted earwax, burst eardrums, and other signs of injury. 

Our Hearing Tests

Pure tone audiometry: You will be seated in a soundproof room while we play a series of tones into the headphones you are wearing. Each ear will be examined individually. You will be asked to raise your hand or press a button when you hear a sound.

Speech recognition and word recognition testing: We will present recordings of words and sentences and ask you to repeat them. You will be tested one ear at a time once more, and possibly both ears together.

Speech in noise testing and other specialty tests: We will present recordings of sentences in background noise and ask you to repeat as many of the words in the sentence as you are able to understand. You will be tested one ear at a time, and then with both ears listening together. Additional specialty tests will be performed on an as needed basis, determined by our Audiologist.

Other tests: We utilize an air test to assess your inner ear hearing abilities and a bone test to assess how sounds are transferred through your skull to establish the sort of hearing loss you may have. These exams are also painless and quick, and they don't demand any effort from you.

A Look at Your Test Results

Now it is time to observe your results, which are given to you in the form of an audiogram. An audiogram is a visual depiction of your hearing ability that records the results of your hearing tests (visualized separately for each ear). The audiogram displays the decibel and frequency levels of the results. The speech testing sections are scored as percentages. 

Our Audiologist will utilize your audiogram to show you if you have normal hearing abilities or a hearing deficit. If you do have hearing loss, the audiogram will indicate the type, degree, and configuration of hearing loss you have.

Next Steps

If a hearing loss is identified after examining your audiogram results with you, we will offer you a variety of treatment choices. 

We'll work with you to identify the ideal hearing aid solution to fit your hearing and lifestyle demands, using the most sophisticated technologies available.

Contact us today to book a hearing exam.