3 Pieces Of Equipment Used By Pediatric Audiologists
Posted on: 30 March 2020
According to recent statistics, up to 3 out of every 1,000 children in the United States are born with some level of hearing loss. In order to best treat hearing loss, early detection is vitally important. Children who have trouble hearing will need to go to a hearing specialist or a pediatric audiologist.
When a pediatric audiologist diagnoses hearing loss, here are three pieces of equipment they will most likely use.
1. Pediatric Audiometers
An audiologist uses a pediatric audiometer to evaluate hearing acuity. Auditory acuity is how clear a person's hearing is, or how well they hear. Pediatric audiometers consist of a hardware unit that gets connected to a pair of headphones.
An audiometry exam tests the intensity and tones of different sounds, as well as balance issues and other functions of the inner ear. Many people don't know that Alexander Graham Bell invented the audiometer. This is why Bell's name is used in the word, "decibel." A decibel is used to measure the degree of loudness.
2. Otoscope
A pediatric audiologist uses an otoscope to look inside the ear. When using an otoscope, the audiologist will be able to see the ear canal and the eardrum. Both the ear canal and the eardrum are located in the middle part of the ear.
The following are the three parts of an otoscope:
- Handle. The part that the audiologist grips to look inside the ear. This is also where the power source for the otoscope's light is located.
- Head. The part that contains the light bulb and the magnifying lens.
- Cone. The part that gets inserted directly into the ear canal.
In some cases, hearing loss may simply be caused by a buildup of earwax. An otoscope can help to determine if this is the case. It can also help determine any other abnormalities in the ear canal or the eardrum.
3. Middle Ear Analyzer
One more piece of equipment that a pediatric audiologist may use is a middle ear analyzer. This device is also known as a tympanometer because it's used during a tympanometry test.
This type of test diagnoses conditions of the middle ear, including the following:
- Ear infection (otitis media)
- Damaged eardrum
- Fluid in the middle ear
- Tumor in the middle ear
- Eustachian tube dysfunction
The tympanometry test gets recorded on a tympanogram, which is a type of graph that shows the relationship between the air pressure in the ear canal and how flexible the eardrum is when those pressures change.
To learn more about pediatric audiology equipment, contact a doctor.
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