Audiology And The Hearing Tests

By Roxanne Cruz


The branch of science that studies hearing, balance and its disorder is called audiology. Catering to the needs of every child and adult, Long Island audiology has been serving for quite sometime. Audiology specialists, or audiologists, are health care professionals who have a specialization in diagnosing and treating disorders of the ears and its parts and other related issues.

They find out if you are within the normal range of hearing by employing different tests, and if not, how affected are you by the disorder. They are trained to assist you in installing cochlear implants, and administering hearing aids. Adults who have become deaf are given coping and compensate skills and parents who have a deaf child are given counseling to cope.

Audiologists use many different tests to diagnose ear and balance problems of the patients like tympanometry, otoacoustics emission evaluations, and evoked potential examinations. Otoscopy is the visual examination of the auditory canal and the eardrums through an otoscope to inspect the outer ear for any signs of diseases.

Typanometry is an evaluation of the doctor of the middle ear system, which is the area behind the eardrum that contains the middle ear bones and its space. Speech audiometry is the evaluation of the awareness of speech, identification and comprehension in quiet background or in a noisy background. Pure tone audiometry is an assessment of the sensitivity of your listening across a range of pitches or frequencies.

Otoacoustics emissions evaluation is an assessment of the inner ear, particularly the cochlea, which is the organ of auditory sense. Vestibular assessment is for those who are having issue in balance and who are always dizzy. Evoked potential test measures the time it takes for the nerves to respond to a stimulus like a test pattern.

These tests are used to evaluate the patient, hence making a confident diagnosis and treatment plan. Aside from identifying and treating the disorder, they also give options on how to manage your ear problems, some of these are aid amplification and rehabilitation programs. Audiologists can make the necessary adjustments to your listening aid since they are equipped with the knowledge to make a proper decision.

Audiologists often work with teams with other health care professionals like speech pathologists, physicians, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. Some work with the general patients while others specialize in child care. There are also some who work as researchers or scientists.

To practice, you need four years of undergraduate study and four years of education and professional training before you will earn your doctorate in audiology. For you to be knowledgeable and prepared diagnosing and treating disorders, you need to have at nearly two thousand hours of clinical rotations which are supervised. In all states, audiologists should have a proper license.

It is a rapidly developing field whose scientists are in demand in the US and worldwide and many states require newborns to be screened for sensory loss and apply early intervention. These doctors are often directly involved with their patients who are usually young children or elderly citizens. Long Island Audiology have improved the quality of life of their patients by giving back the gift of hearing to them.




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