Tests For Hearing Loss
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010A lot of things can lead to hearing loss and the best thing to do to avoid deafness all together is by preventing it in the first place. Hearing loss can be a side effect of some disease, medication or can be caused by being exposed to loud sounds. Hearing impairment can be a disability a person is born or has grown up with, since the body sometimes don’t form correctly.
Babies are more at risk from hearing loss than anything else. Kids as small as possible can already get hearing loss if not properly protected from it. Just because a person is born normal, he or she can still get it from sustaining head injuries or a person’s genetics.
A person can lose their sense of hearing by being exposed to loud environmental noises regularly. Airports, concerts, crowds or anything else for that matter can lead people to lose their sense of hearing. Listening to loud music through headphones or in a car is also a big no no as this can often lead to gradual hearing loss.
Hearing aids are given by doctors to effectively treat many kinds of hearing impairment. There are a ton of different kinds of hearing aids used to treat problems with hearing and each of these have their own pros and cons. The main function of a hearing aid is to collect, funnel and amplify surrounding sound to a person.
A person who undergoes a hearing test should not be surprised when an audiometer is used to check his or her hearing. Tests with an audiometer involve a person sitting in a soundproof booth wearing headphones that are connected to an audiometer. The patient then has to listen intently for sounds at different frequencies and volume supplied by the audiometer.
Aside from the BTE, there is a new medical breakthrough called cochlear implants which is simply a device made to replace your cochlear. The cochlear or bionic ear implant needs to be surgically implanted underneath the scalp and right behind the affected ear. Cochlear implants work like a natural cochlea and its main job is to collect sounds, converts and send these to the brain.
A microphone, speech processor, transmitter, receiver, stimulator, tons of electrodes make up the cochlear implant. Only developed and rich countries are able to provide patients with this implant option as it is a very expensive procedure. A person still needs to qualify for the implant and he or she needs to reveal his or her history of hearing problems, the current state it is in and the person’s overall health.
The tuning fork is first placed in the exact middle of the forehead in the Weber test. The tuning fork will emit a sound and if the sound is heard equally, then the person will either have no hearing loss or equal hearing loss 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.
Prevention is the best medicine when it comes to hearing impairment but sometimes there is nothing a person can do but live with hearing treatments. A specialist trained in the various aspecs of hearing treatment is the only way to know which hearing treatment should be used. Don’t waste another moment before you have your hearing checked.
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