Effective Puretone Audiometry: Strategy and Guidance
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Added on 2023/04/24
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This document provides guidance for effective puretone audiometry, including descriptors for pure tone audiograms and recommended audiogram forms. It covers calibration requirements, test environment, and preparation for testing. It also discusses test order, methods for finding a threshold, and masking.
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Audiology 1
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The main motive of this document is to describe ideal strategy and guidance for effective pure- tone audiometry which has been used in maximum audio logical context. The other topic which has been covered is descriptors for pure tone audiograms and the format which has been recommended for audiogram forms. It is necessary to clean the transducer, audiometer and the button which is being used to respond. The relevant and current calibration requirements and performance must be met by audiometers(British Society of Audiology, 2011). For the test environment, the tester must be able to see the face of the subject clearly but the subject must not be able to see or hear the tester while adjusting audiometer control. The test result can be affected by excessive ambient noise and this noise must not exceed the level which has been set out in the standards of BS EN ISO. There are some preparations which need to be followed for testing.The tester must follow a strategy of effective communication with the subject. This considers the age of the subject, language skills, hearing and other difficulties in communication. Any likelihood in supra-earphones can lead to measurement issue which could be a false air- bone gap. Inserting earphones can help in avoiding most of the problems. Permission needs to be taken from the subject for any exposure which may make a loud noise and cause temporary hear loss. Instructions need to be clear and must contain all the relevant details about the task. There are three transducers which are being used in air-condition audiometry: insert earphone, supra- aural and circum-aural(Gilbert, 2008). Test order starts with better hearing power at 1000 Hz and the timing of tone which varies between 1 and 3 seconds. The timing of each tone must not be predictable and tester has the responsibility for it. The tester should continue with the signal until the subject responds. There are some methods which can help in finding a threshold. It requires following a response which is satisfactory and positive(Russell & Cohn, 2012). The level of the tone 10 dB needs to be 2
reduced and tone in 5-dB needs to be increased unless not getting any further response. Masking is required in order to identify which ear is giving a response to bone-conducting testing. The bone vibrator use to place on the worse hearing ear and it must be kept near to the pinna but it should not touch it. The timing and instructions for the test are the same as for a-c audiometry. Earphones make sound limited to one ear at a time but it is not necessary that the intended is detecting the sound. It is easy to overcome from the cross-hearing issue by raising the hearing entrance of the not test ear. As per the BS EN ISO 369-4 masking noise must be calibrated for an effective masking level. If the noise is not getting calibrated as per the effective masking level in that case the entrance of masking noise needs to be figured out. In this test also a sound can be noticed during the test and the button needs to be pressed just after hearing the sound(Valente, Hosford-Dunn & Roeser, 2008). 3
References British Society of Audiology. (2011).Pure-tone air-conduction and bone-conduction threshold audiometry with and without masking(4th ed.). The United Kingdom. Gilbert, J. (2008).Medical Device Materials IV(1st ed.). Materials Park, OH: ASM International. Russell, J., & Cohn, R. (2012).Audiology(3rd ed.). U.S.: Lennex Corp. Valente, M., Hosford-Dunn, H., & Roeser, R. (2008).Audiology(4th ed.). New York: Thieme. 4