Hearing test
The hearing care professional will normally start by asking you some questions relating to your hearing, such as how you experience your hearing, if you have been subjected to loud noise or other incidents, if people in your family suffer from hearing loss or whether you hear better in one ear or the other.
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Initial examination
The hearing care professional will start by examining your ears with a special instrument called an otoscope. With this examination the hearing care professional can find out if there are any problems in the ear canal or with the eardrum.
After the physical examination, your hearing is tested. This takes place in a quiet room without background noise or in a special soundproof room.
Pure tone test
The first test is a pure tone test. This tests your ability to hear a number of different pure tones using a pair of soundproof headphones.
Bone conduction test
In some cases, the hearing care professional will carry out a bone conduction test to measure your ability to hear pure tones, by placing a small bone conductor behind your ear. The bone conduction test will reveal if there is a problem in the middle ear cavity.
Speech test
Next, the hearing care professional will test your ability to understand speech. The speech test investigates whether there could be problems with the auditory nerve which sends signals from the ear to the brain or whether there could be problems understanding speech and sounds in the brain itself.
Tympanometry
The last examination is Tympanometry. Tympanometry tests the condition of the middle ear and the mobility of the eardrum.
Audiogram
The results of these tests are presented in an audiogram, which will show the degree of your hearing loss and if you could benefit from hearing aids.
Test yourself
How good are you at hearing what is being said by the announcer at a noisy football match? Take the test here! (external link)