Hearing Tests

Many adults report that the last time they recall hav­ing a hear­ing assess­ment is some­time in ele­men­tary school, yet hear­ing loss is the third most com­mon med­ical com­plaint in old­er adults. Diag­nos­tic hear­ing assess­ment is a com­bi­na­tion of tests to deter­mine whether hear­ing loss exists, sever­i­ty of the loss, pitch­es affect­ed, impact on com­mu­ni­ca­tion abil­i­ties, and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the por­tion of the audi­to­ry sys­tem that has been affected.

Hear­ing assess­ment can be com­plet­ed even for new­born infants and preschool­ers as well as school-age chil­dren. Do not wor­ry if your child is unable to answer ques­tions or iden­ti­fy sounds or objects, there are phys­i­o­log­ic test meth­ods to pro­vide infor­ma­tion regard­ing hear­ing sen­si­tiv­i­ty that require no active response from the patient. Con­cerns regard­ing your child’s respon­sive­ness to voic­es or envi­ron­men­tal sounds as well as delayed speech and lan­guage devel­op­ment war­rant sched­ul­ing a hear­ing assessment.Below, you’ll find a list of tests offered by DMG Hear­ing & Audi­ol­o­gy along with a descrip­tion of each.

Diag­nos­tic Audiometry

Audio­met­ric test­ing is indi­vid­u­al­ized and may be con­duct­ed in var­i­ous ways depend­ing on the age and abil­i­ty of the patient. Typ­i­cal­ly, air con­duc­tion audiom­e­try is com­plet­ed in addi­tion to bone con­duc­tion audiom­e­try in order to deter­mine the type and sever­i­ty of the hear­ing loss. Test results will allow the audi­ol­o­gist to diag­nose con­duc­tive, mixed or sen­sorineur­al hear­ing loss.

Otoa­coustic Emis­sions Testing

This type of test is an objec­tive eval­u­a­tion of the hear­ing organ, the cochlea, and the out­er hair cells with­in it. Sounds are con­duct­ed through the mid­dle ear to the inner ear, stim­u­lat­ing the out­er hair cells which emit a response called an otoa­coustic emis­sion. These mea­sured respons­es pro­vide infor­ma­tion regard­ing hear­ing sensitivity.

Immit­tance Testing

This study may include var­i­ous test­ing includ­ing Tym­pa­nom­e­try, Acoustic Reflex­es and Decay. Tym­pa­nom­e­try is respon­si­ble for eval­u­at­ing the func­tion of the mid­dle ear; this includes the eardrum and mid­dle ear bones. This test can be help­ful in con­firm­ing med­ical prob­lems in the ear such as flu­id build-up, ear infec­tion or issues with the ear bones. Acoustic reflex­es and decay eval­u­ate ori­gin of hear­ing loss.

Eustachi­an Tube Func­tion (ETF)

In some instances, ETF may be com­plet­ed as part of the Immit­tance test­ing to ensure prop­er func­tion of the Eustachi­an Tube.

Videonys­tag­mog­ra­phy (VNG)

A VNG may be ordered to assist your Oto­lary­nol­o­gist in deter­min­ing the ori­gin of dizzi­ness or ver­ti­go. An audi­ol­o­gist will con­duct the test­ing and pro­vide a report for your oto­laryn­gol­o­gist. The process con­sists of sev­er­al tests in which the your eye move­ments are record­ed by camera.

Audi­to­ry Brain­stem Response Test­ing (ABR)

An ABR is anoth­er type of objec­tive eval­u­a­tion tool used to obtain infor­ma­tion regard­ing a patient’s hear­ing. In addi­tion to adults, this test is used in diag­nos­ing hear­ing prob­lems in new­borns, tod­dlers and preschool­ers or patients who can­not answer ques­tions or iden­ti­fy objects. The ABR test relies on the brain’s respons­es to dif­fer­ent types of stim­uli pre­sent­ed at var­i­ous sound lev­els to assist in diag­no­sis hear­ing loss. This type of test­ing is ordered when tra­di­tion­al audiom­e­try can­not be com­plet­ed or when fur­ther infor­ma­tion is need­ed to rule out pos­si­ble med­ical issues.

Elec­tro­cochleog­ra­phy (ECochG)

This type of test is used to assist in diag­nos­ing Meniere’s Dis­ease. The audi­ol­o­gist will use a pair of stick­er elec­trodes and spe­cial ear­phones to study how the ear canals present sounds. The results will deter­mine if the sense organs of each ear responds appro­pri­ate­ly when stimulated.