Audiologists provide information, education, and guidance to individuals with hearing and balance disorders. They also counsel families through a new diagnosis of hearing loss in infants and teach coping and compensation skills to late-deafened adults.
Clinical guidelines and researchers recommend specific behaviors and interactional styles to promote hearing aid use in adult patients, but controlled experimental studies are needed to establish these interventions.
Detecting Hearing Loss
Professional audiology services in Sudbury offers services related to hearing and balance disorders. These services include a complete physical exam, testing the ears, and conducting various diagnostic tests to determine the cause and extent of hearing loss (including CT scans or MRI if necessary).
Audiologists counsel individuals and their families regarding assessment results, intervention strategies, and other relevant issues. They are also responsible for referring individuals to other professionals when counseling needs are outside their scope of practice.
Although clinical guidelines and researchers recommend that audiologists engage in shared and patient-centered practice, no controlled experimental studies have examined how clinician behaviors might promote hearing aid use and benefit in adults.
Hearing Tests
The audiologist will want to do a series of tests to determine the extent of your hearing loss. Sometimes referred to as a hearing evaluation, these tests go in-depth and assess your ability to hear different tones in your ears.
The first test, called pure tone audiometry, uses a special device that broadcasts sounds to your ears at various pitches and volumes. The audiologist will record your responses and chart the results on an audiogram.
Evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAE) and auditory brainstem response are other tests that look at how well your cochlear nerve and the pathways from your ears to your brain are functioning. These are particularly useful in infants and people who may not be able to cooperate with behavioral testing techniques. They also provide essential data on how your inner ear functions. Your audiologist will use these results to make treatment recommendations. They may recommend a hearing aid or other corrective measures.
Hearing Aids
Hearing aids can improve your hearing ability in noisy environments and help with speech clarity. They can also help you stay alert to essential signals like alarms, sirens, and traffic, as well as telephones and doorbells at home, at work, and in the community.
While several clinical guidelines and researchers recommend particular behaviors for audiologists during their interactions with adult hearing aid patients, controlled experimental studies examining the effectiveness of these strategies still need to be included. It is hoped that such research will be conducted to supply the evidence base needed to guide clinical practice and interventions.
Until then, there is clear room for improvement in how audiologists promote hearing aid use in their clinical interactions with adults. Currently, many audiologists still need to use effective behavior change techniques.
Hearing Rehabilitation
Audiologists counsel individuals and their families concerning emotional reactions, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and concerns related to hearing loss, assistive devices, tinnitus, and communication strategies. They may refer individuals to other professionals for counseling needs outside their expertise.
Clinical guidelines and researchers recommend that audiologists use interaction and behavior change strategies during fitting consultations to promote hearing aid usage and benefit. However, controlled experimental studies are necessary to determine whether these behaviors influence patient outcomes.
During three one-hour classes, participants learn how to make the most of their new hearing aids and practice techniques for improving their ability to understand speech in noise, manage conversations, and take charge of their communication. Research has shown that these classes are a powerful tool to help people adjust to their hearing loss and improve their quality of life. Moreover, they can also generate income for the audiologist.