Audiometry exam: How does it take place?

of minimum audibility "of the patient; this allows to identify the presence of any anomalies and hearing deficits which must then be communicated to the doctor by filling in the appropriate report.

The diagnosis of a "possible hypoacusis and / or deafness, however, is the sole and exclusive responsibility of the otolaryngologist and not the" audiometrist.

The "audiometric examination must" be carried out in a place where the patient cannot be distracted by other "background" noises that may be present in the surrounding environment. For this reason, this type of examination is usually conducted inside the so-called "audiometric booth" which is able to acoustically isolate the patient.

In the light of what has just been said, it is clear what is the importance of audiometry in the identification of important hearing disorders, the progression of which - if detected promptly - could be effectively arrested or slowed down.

However, audiometry results must always be interpreted as a function of the subject's age. In fact, it is good to remember that with "advancing age" - due to the degeneration of hearing structures related to natural aging processes - a certain level of hearing loss can also be considered normal (in these cases, usually, we speak of presbycusis) .

Basically, we can say that there are three different types of audiometry: tonal audiometry, speech audiometry and high frequency audiometry. The main characteristics of these different forms of audiometry will be briefly described below.

it must first pass through the outer ear and the middle ear.

By bone; in this case, however, the pure sound is transmitted to the cochlea (and therefore to the acoustic nerve) through the vibration of the mastoid process of the ear to be examined.

Furthermore, tonal audiometry can be of two types:

• Supraliminal tonal audiometry: method that allows you to determine the patient's comfortable hearing and discomfort thresholds. In this case, the audiometric examination will be performed using sound stimuli of increasing intensity.
• Liminal tonal audiometry: this method, on the other hand, has the objective of determining the absolute audiometric threshold of a patient with respect to sound stimuli. Unlike what happens with supraliminal tonal audiometry, in this case the sound stimuli do not vary. "intensity.

Generally, the exam in question begins by testing the conduction of the high frequencies (2,048 Hz to 8,192 Hz) and then the low frequencies (512 Hz to 128 Hz). During the exam, the patient must raise his hand or push a key to confirm that you have heard the sound.

The data collected by audiometry give rise to a tonal audiogram which will be analyzed by the audiometrist technician.

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