For Patients
Adult Hearing Care Procedures
Assessment
During your assessment we will discuss your hearing history, current problems, your health and lifestyle. This information will help us to understand possible causes for any hearing problems you are experiencing. The audiologist will then examine your ears and conduct a hearing test. You will be presented with a series of sounds and you will be asked to press a button whenever you hear the sound. The details of your test will be plotted onto a graph called an audiogram, this will allow us to see a ‘picture’ of your hearing levels. If appropriate, a spoken word test may also be carried out. This helps us to assess how well you can hear speech with and without background noise. If you are able to bring someone with you to your appointment this of great benefit as it helps to have a familiar voice for this part of the test.
At the end of your assessment we will discuss your results with you. If a digital hearing aid will be of benefit to you and you are happy to proceed we will either fit them at your appointment (this depends upon your hearing loss) or we will take impressions of your ears to make ear moulds.
Fitting
Fitting may be carried out at the end of your assessment appointment (depending upon your hearing loss) or at a separate fitting appointment (2 – 3 weeks after your assessment). At your fitting we will fit your new digital hearing aid and adjust them to meet your hearing loss. A test will be conducted to verify this. We will discuss with you how to care and maintain your hearing aid, advise you on the support available to you and show you how to fit and use your hearing aids.
Follow up
You will either receive a telephone call or an appointment 8 – 12 weeks after the fitting of your hearing aid. This is to check you are benefiting from your new hearing aids and are happy with them. We will discuss how you are adapting to your changed hearing and assess to see if any adjustment is required to the physical fit or electronic set-up.
