Your hearing consultation begins with a documented analysis of your medical and hearing history. You will be asked about your prior noise exposure from work or leisure activities, if any physical damage has occurred to your ears, and about past illnesses or medications that may have impacted your hearing.

Next, the hearing professional will place a small, lighted camera inside your ear canal with the image projected on a TV screen. This may be helpful in detecting such things as fluid, perforations of the eardrum, or excessive earwax.

An electronic audiometric threshold test is then conducted. You will listen to puretone signals at different frequency and loudness levels and indicate your ability to hear them. In some cases, a bone conduction threshold test may be performed using a mastoid bone oscillator.

Because you may not hear certain sounds and words properly, you'll be tested for discrimination or speech understanding using a word test. This same procedure is conducted with amplification in order to determine your potential benefit or improved understanding when amplification is used.

Your audiogram results will be documented and graphically depicted showing your hearing loss thresholds, speech discrimination scores and the potential difficulties you may be having if you have a hearing loss. Your hearing specialist will take the time to explain the results in simple terms.