What is an audiologist’s role?

If you have never experienced pain or ringing in your ears or muffled hearing, you may not have attended a hearing specialist’s clinic. Hearing specialists, or audiologists, are experts in the ears and hearing. Let’s take a look in more detail at what their role entails.

What do audiologists do?

An audiologist’s job is to test people’s ears, identify and diagnose problems, and assist the person return to full hearing health.

To diagnose hearing problems, audiologists use a number of non-invasive and painless tests. They may also look inside the ear and ask the patient about their hearing; for example, do they experience ringing in the ears or struggle to hear conversations?

Just as you may go for an eye test annually, a regular visit to an audiologist Taunton such as https://www.imperialhearing.com/audiologist-near-me/taunton is a sensible approach so that any potential problems can be diagnosed and treated early.

What happens at the appointment?

The problem is sometimes easily identified and equally easily solved, such as blocked ears due to excessive earwax. In cases like this, it is easy to remove the earwax with a painless ear irrigation appointment. The audiologist can perform this, and irrigation is a much safer way of cleaning out the inner ear than attempting to do so yourself at home.

At other times, hearing can be affected by problems such as tinnitus, diabetes, or age-related hearing decline. Where lifestyle changes such as stopping smoking may help, an audiologist will advise on this. Additionally, audiologists can provide a wide range of communication support, such as how to lip read or align yourself with the person speaking so that you can follow their dialogue more easily.

If a more serious problem is identified, audiologists can prescribe and fit hearing aids to help patients return to better auditory health. Modern hearing aids are much more discrete and comfortable than in decades gone by.

Audiologists are also trained experts in the management of cochlear implants and other implanted hearing devices; what’s more, they will offer long-term support to users of these devices.