What Happens at Your Hearing Test Appointment?

Just like an eye test, you should be regularly booking a hearing test to check your hearing is as it should be. As you get older your hearing can deteriorate very gradually, so much so that you may not realize your hearing isn’t as good as it once was.

By going to a test, an audiologist can access your hearing and help keep it to the optimal level. It’s important to know that you can’t improve hearing once it’s lost, instead, they look to find solutions to help reduce your loss of hearing as well as help enhance your hearing through technology.

The majority of the time your audiologist will recommend you a hearing aid to help with your hearing. Hearing aids have improved a lot recently due to technological advancements. Now they come in many shapes, sizes and colors.

We would recommend you get your hearing tested every five years until you are 50. From the age of 50, try to book an appointment every, one to two years as this is when hearing loss is more likely to occur.

So, What Happens During Your Hearing Test Appointment?

Your hearing test will take place in a sound-proof room – this helps reduce the chances of any errors occurring or background noise affecting your results. The process of a hearing test is painless and takes just over 30-minutes. It’s very easy to do and you can ask any question you have throughout the whole process – we would encourage you to ask questions to help make you feel more comfortable.

When the hearing test commences, your audiologist will ask you to place a set of headphones over your ears. They will then proceed to play a variety of sounds through the headphones to test your hearing ability. These sounds will come in the form of short tones, long tones, high pitch and low pitch tones. Whilst playing the tones, they may play them at different lengths as well as different pitches. Whilst this is happening the audiologist will be asking your questions regarding the sounds and tracking your results.

As well as testing different pitches, you will also be required to listen to a speech test through your headphones. During this test, different lengths of speeches will be played at different volumes, similar to the test mentioned above. Speeches could be played through one of both headphones to test different hearing strengths through your ears. When playing the speeches, your audiologist will be asking you to repeat what they are saying to ensure you are hearing it correctly.

Your Results

Once the test has been completed your audiologist will access your results. From here they will let you know the level of hearing from each of your ears and if there is any cause for concern. If there is, they may ask for further tests. Most of the time the tests are good, and you can go home happy knowing your hearing is good.