You probably feel that your hearing is not up to scratch or that it has worsened recently. This may be stemming from situations where you have to ask for words to be repeated during face-to-face or phone conversations or when other individuals complain that the radio music is extremely loud while you deem it as comfortable. In this case, visit a hearing care professional who will determine through a hearing test the type and degree of your hearing loss for each particular ear. The results are usually entered in an audiogram. So, how can you make sense of your hearing test results? Read on.
Sound measurement
The volume of sound is measured in decibels (dB). Here are examples of decibel levels for some familiar sounds:
- Normal conversation - 60 dB
- Normal household - 50 dB
- Gunshot - 140 dB
- Live music concert - 140 dB
Exposing your ears to sounds louder than 85 decibels may impair your hearing ability. On the other hand, frequency is measured in Hertz (Hz). During a hearing test, a range of 250-8000 Hz is assessed as it covers the speech frequencies.
When measured together, sound decibels and frequency tell the extent of hearing loss degree in each ear.
Level of hearing loss
- Mild hearing loss
If you have no hearing problems during one-on-one conversations but cannot understand a couple of words in noisy surroundings, you may be suffering from mild hearing loss. For instance, the word 'death' might sound like 'deaf'. By definition, you have a hearing loss ranging from 26 to 40 decibels across certain pitches or frequencies.
- Moderate hearing loss
With this level of hearing loss, you are likely to be having difficulties keeping up with conversations and thus requesting people to repeat themselves. On average, you can only hear sounds between 40 and 70 decibels.
- Severe hearing loss
At this level, you can only hear sounds between 70 and 95 decibels. You will need to use a powerful hearing aid and at the same time rely on lip-reading to make sense of what other people are saying. You may also use sign language to communicate.
- Profound hearing loss
With this extent of hearing loss, you can only hear very loud sounds not lower than 95 decibels and rely heavily on a hearing aid, lip-reading and sign language for communication.
To ascertain if you have hearing loss and to what extent, schedule an appointment with a hearing healthcare professional who will administer a few hearing tests to you. Based on the results as captured in an audiogram, the specialist may suggest a course of treatment including hearing aids or aural communication lessons.
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