Hearing Test For Adults

If you are about to take the hearing test for adults or need to book an appointment with one of our local hearing partners it might be worth knowing how hearing works. Having a general understanding of your hearing before you have a hearing test is a good thing which is why we offer a hearing test for adults free of charge.

As with all of us the human ear comprises the OUTER EAR, the MIDDLE EAR and the INNER EAR.

The OUTER EARS function is to collect sound waves (which are actually nothing more than airborne vibration) in the bowl of the ear, amplify them at key frequencies which are important for hearing speech (a bit like a built-in ear trumpet – hence the shape) and direct them into the ear canal (which amplifies them again) down to the eardrum which then starts to vibrate.

The term MIDDLE EAR refers to a pressurised chamber inside your skull directly behind your eardrum. The three smallest bones in the human body live there – the Hammer or Malleus, the Anvil or Incus and Stirrup or Stapes. The Hammer is connected to the eardrum and the Stirrup to the inner ear. Collectively they are the Ossicles and their purpose is to act as a kind of crowbar to further increase the amount of energy delivered to the inner ear.

The INNER EAR houses the Cochlea which is a pea sized organ consisting of two liquid filled galleries which are reactive to movement from the Ossicles.  When the Ossicles move in response to a sound being detected there is an increase in pressure in the upper gallery. This sets up a wave in the liquid, which presses down on the lower gallery. Via some complex anatomy and thousands of hair cells the movement generates coded electrical signals to the brain which then travel up the AUDITORY PATHWAY to the brain where they are perceived as sound. It is a model of elegant evolution being sufficiently acoustically pure to potentially enable us to:

• Detect small changes in volume
• Detect small changes in pitch – the range of the average ear is 20 – 20,000Hz
• Determine where a sound has come from – both horizontally and vertically
• Detect speech in noise
• Detect danger

A hearing test for adults is a key requirement these days and when you have the ability to take a hearing test int he comfort of your own home without the hassle why wouldn’t you.