Detection is the best chance a person can have to prevent or halt hearing loss in its tracks. Hearing loss can be the result of physical injury, illnesses, ear infection or even to prolonged exposure to noise pollution. Aside from the above, hearing impairment can be a disability a person is born with, as some parts of the body may have formed improperly.
Certain illnesses or diseases can also cause hearing problems in a person. If you think you’re safe when your hearing is not affected by sickness, you’re wrong as the medicine you are taking might end up giving you hearing problems instead. Loss of hearing can be caused by bumping your head the wrong way or just really hard.
A person who is regularly in an environment where the noise is extremely loud can also be inflicted with hearing loss. Loudspeakers, noisy people even are examples of noise pollution or environmental noise. Your not so everyday type of noise pollution for example are the loud sounds coming from an explosion or even gunfire.
Hearing aids are given by doctors to effectively treat many kinds of hearing impairment. There are many types of hearing aids and each will have their own pros and cons. Hearing aids in general will still just collect and amplify sound to a user.
The easiest way to determine the type of the hearing aid is by examining where it is worn by the user. Hearing aids worn behind the ear are called BTE and these are made up of a case, a tube and ear molds. While some hearing aids can be damaged by moisture and earwax, BTE aids cannot as it is placed outside the ear and only the ear mold is at risk.
The subject inside the booth, upon hearing the tone will usually acknowledge hearing the tone by pressing on a button. A graph of frequency against volume will be plotted by the specialist to complete the test. Once the test is complete, a simple view of the graph can easily reveal if the subject does indeed have hearing loss and at what frequencies and decibel levels.
An audtiometry test is not sufficient to figure out the real problem a person is having, but with the use of the Rinne and Weber test, the type of hearing loss can be determined. Both Weber and Rinne tests uses a tuning fork to figure out the type of hearing loss. The Rinne test is used to determine whether a person has sensorineural or conductive hearing loss, while the Weber test simply checks to see if hearing loss is indeed present.
Starting with the Weber test, a tuning fork is placed in the middle of the forehead at a point that has the same distance from both ears. If the patient has normal hearing or symmetrical hearing or has the same level of hearing loss for both ears, the sound heard will be the same in both ears. When a person does not hear the same sound in both ears then it can be concluded that the person has definite asymmetric hearing loss.
In addition to the Weber test, if the Rinne test is followed, it is even possible to detect if a person has conductive or sensorineural hearing loss too. It may not seem like it, but with the two tests it is possible to even detech which ear has what type of hearing loss. Although these tests are standard practice and used by physicians and specialists alike, a proper audiometry or hearing test with an audiometer is still best.
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