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Hearing Health
Their role is both a clinical and a counseling one. Holding a doctoral degree (required for new audiologists since 2007) or a Master’s degree, they are well qualified to diagnose the severity and type of hearing loss and to determine whether medical evaluation is necessary.
At the conclusion of the evaluation, the results will be reviewed with you, and recommendations will be made.
Audiologists will recommend medical evaluation as necessary, but as a rule, a physician right away if you have:
If medical evaluation is recommended, your primary care physician is usually a good place to start. He or she may be able to remove earwax, treat common disorders like ear infections, and determine whether referral to an ear specialist is necessary. An ear specialist (otologist or otolaryngologist) is primarily a surgeon and can determine whether surgery is necessary. The specialist can also evaluate and treat more unusual ear disorders and remove deeply impacted earwax.
If medical or surgical treatment won’t help in your case, or doesn’t help enough, the odds are that hearing aids will help. Ninety to ninety-five percent of sensorineural hearing loss can be helped with hearing aids, at least to some degree. About eighty percent of hearing aid users wear hearing aids in both ears. People often put off getting hearing aids, but once they have been successfully fit with hearing aids, they don’t want to be without them. Successful fitting requires careful selection, precise programming, counseling and follow-up fine-tuning as the brain adjusts to hearing well again. Please see our hearing aids page for a thorough discussion of this topic. You may also want to see the frequently asked questions section.