How To Check Your Hearing With An Audiometer

The most common type of hearing test is the pure tone audiometer test, which is the pure tone hearing threshold test. Then how to master the pure tone threshold test content, method and sequence, to understand the normal hearing curve; to understand the characteristics of the hearing curve, the identification method and clinical significance of different ear diseases.

First, inspection methods and steps

1. The examiner explains the examination method and requirements to the subject, and checks for the presence or absence of paralysis or other secretions in the ear canal and removes it.

2. The test is carried out in a soundproof room, and the general indoor noise level does not exceed 30 dB.

3. The inspected person should take a comfortable sitting position, do not let the instrument panel and the examiner's operation be seen, and listen carefully.

4. When testing, first measure the air conduction, then measure the bone conduction, first measure the ear, then measure the ear.

5. Air conduction hearing threshold test method:

1 The subject wears the earphones, and the elastic is suitable. The diaphragm in the center of the earphone is aimed at the ear canal, the red mark is on the right side, and the blue mark is on the left side;

2 Familiar test: first give 40dB 1kHz test tone. If you can hear it, reduce the intensity by 20dB. If you can't hear it, increase the intensity by 10dB, and the sound will be heard by the examinee. Then the test tone will be heard. Decrease to a minimum and gradually increase the sound intensity until the subject responds;

3 formal test: starting from 1KHz, the initial test sound level is 10dB lower than the hearing level that can be heard by the test ear in the above “familiar test”, and the test is repeated 5 times with the principle of “down 10dB and 5dB”;

4 three of them responded at the same hearing level to the listening threshold of the pure tone of the frequency;

5 sequentially measure 2 kHz, 4 kHz, 8 kHz, 500 Hz, 250 Hz, 125 Hz hearing threshold.

6. Bone conduction threshold test method:

1 The examinee first wears the bone conduction earphone and puts it on the back of the ear canal, which is equivalent to the drum sinus;

2 test method is the same as air conduction test method;

3 Generally, the test of each octave sound between 250 Hz and 4 kHz is performed.

7. Masking:

1 first measure the threshold of binaural air conduction without masking;

2 pairs of side ears are masked with a 10dB intensity noise on the equivalent air conduction threshold;

3 At this time, the hearing threshold of the ear is tested again. If there is no change, it is the true hearing threshold;

4 If the threshold has a change of more than 10dB, the masking sound is increased by 10dB, and the noise threshold of the noise communication surface is no longer changed.

8. The minimum sound that can be heard at each frequency is the hearing threshold, and the hearing threshold of each frequency is connected on the hearing coordinate map to draw a pure tone hearing threshold map.

Second, the clinical significance

1. Pure tone hearing threshold test is a subjective test method, which is the most commonly used and most important hearing test method in clinical practice, including air conduction audiometry and bone conduction test.

2. When measuring the air conduction, if the hearing clearance of the two ears is 40 decibels difference, when testing the poor ear, the noise should be masked in the non-test ear; when measuring the bone conduction, the masking noise should be used regularly in the opposite ear.

3. In the clinical work, the hearing curve is judged to be normal within 20 decibels.