What Is an Audiologist?
An audiologist is a healthcare provider who has expertise and specialized training in diagnosing and treating hearing loss. Audiologists are able to perform evaluations that check for hearing loss to offer treatment options like hearing aids and other hearing assistive devices. They treat conditions that affect the inner, middle, and outer ear areas, but they don’t perform surgeries. An audiologist can treat noise-induced hearing loss, which might be temporary or permanent, as well as sensorineural hearing loss. Sensorineural hearing loss often occurs as people get older, but some children are born with it.Audiologists additionally diagnose and treat ototoxicity, which is hearing loss that certain medications cause. Other conditions audiologists can treat are auditory processing disorders, symptoms like tinnitus, and syndromic and nonsyndromic hearing loss.
What Qualifications Does an Audiologist Need to Work at Happy Ears?
To work at Happy Ears, an audiologist has to have a Doctor of Audiology (AUD) degree. Our audiologists have passed a state licensing exam and completed an externship or fellowship year. Audiologists have to be registered or licensed to practice in all states, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. To be able to offer our patients the best services, we require all of our audiologists to pursue continued education. This ensures that they are up to date on all of the latest hearing and balance health options.
What Services Does Happy Ears Offer?
Happy Ears offers hearing healthcare for all types of hearing loss for people of all ages, as well as disruptive symptoms like tinnitus. We also diagnose and treat imbalance, dizziness, and vertigo.We offer hearing aid fittings and repairs to ensure you’re getting the most out of the available technology. Happy Ears offers pediatric audiology services, as well as help for retirement communities. For those who can’t come to us in person, we provide telehealth services. Because your ability to hear also impacts your cognitive functions, we provide the latest services in cognitive screening.
What Is Involved In a Hearing Assessment, and How Long Does It Typically Take?
The hearing assessment will usually begin with a thorough conversation about the problems you’ve been experiencing, your lifestyle and work, and anything else that might give us an idea of the kinds of noises you’re used to hearing. We’ll also delve into your medical history, including any medications you take. We’ll then proceed to a physical examination of your ears, followed by a hearing test. The hearing test is called pure-tone audiometry and involves sitting in a soundproof room. You’ll have to wear headphones and press a button every time you hear a sound. You will also have to repeat words back in quiet, and also with a lot of background noise present. The test produces an audiogram, letting us see the quietest levels where you can still hear sound. It will measure this over a number of different pitches and will do so for both ears. Depending on the kind of hearing loss you have, we may perform other tests as well. The entire assessment as well as device demonstrations and education takes approximately 90 minutes.
