4 Questions to Ask About Hearing Tests

As part of your care, you should go for regular hearing tests. These are an opportunity for your audiologist to find out whether you may have hearing loss. If you do, they can then recommend treatment. Ideally, you’ll want to go into your hearing test prepared. Asking the right questions gives you an opportunity to find out more about hearing loss and get the most value possible from the test. 

Type Of Hearing Loss Do I Have? 

As you might expect, there is more than one type of hearing loss. Some patients have sensorineural hearing loss while others have conductive hearing loss. You may also have a combination of both. 

Audiologists have sophisticated equipment and testing procedures that allow them to characterize the type of hearing loss that you have. This lets them determine both the cause and severity of your condition. 

An audiogram, for instance, is a test in which you wear a pair of headphones and then listen to a range of pure tones at different volumes and frequencies. This test provides audiologists with a chart showing your hearing range. They can then use it to inform you whether you have mild, moderate, severe or profound hearing loss. 

What Type of Hearing Aids Should I Use? 

You should also talk to your audiologist about the best type of hearing aids for your personal circumstances. Which you choose is very much an individual decision based on the extent of your hearing loss and lifestyle. 

For instance, if you have mild hearing loss and live an active lifestyle, you may want to choose in-the-ear devices. These models contain all of the required components in a single bud that you put in your ear without any external components prone to damage. 

If you have more profound hearing loss and live a more sedentary lifestyle, then you may benefit more from behind-the-ear hearing aids. These have external parts but can produce higher volumes and often have more settings to better amplify sounds. 

Audiologists can also discuss the features that you would like your hearing aid to have. So, for instance, you might choose a model that has a directional microphone so you can concentrate better on voices in noisy rooms. 

Is Hearing Loss the Same in Both Ears? 

Audiologists should test each of your ears independently to work out whether hearing loss is worse in one or the other. Your brain can interpret sounds better when the perceived volume is the same in each ear. Audiologists will adjust hearing aids accordingly. 

What Happens If I Don’t Like the Performance of My Hearing Aids? 

Sometimes, you may discover that hearing aids don’t work as you would hope. Audiologists will warn you at your test that it can take time for hearing aids to wear in – up to a few weeks. However, if you are still having trouble, you can return to your audiologist and ask them to adjust the settings on the device. Sometimes, it can take time to find the right combination.