What does your Audiogram Mean?

If you have difficulty hearing when there are background noises or you struggle to follow group conversations, then you might be suffering from hearing loss. To follow up on this, you should visit an audiologist for a hearing test. One element of a hearing exam is the audiogram.

What is an Audiogram?

An audiogram shows the pattern of your ability to hear pitch and volume in graph form.

• Pitch: Is the frequency (measured in Hertz or Hz) of a sound which are graphed on a scale from high to low. For example, a cricket chirping is high-pitch sound, while a bass drum is a low-pitch sound
• Volume: Measured in decibels (dB), a sound may be loud, such as a motorcycle engine, or soft, such as whispering.

The audiogram plots both ears individually. This allows your audiologist compare one side with the other and see if the problem affects one ear, both ears, or each ear to a differing degree.

The audiogram itself is plotted on a graph with the vertical axis representing volume, with loud noises at the bottom and extremely quiet noises at the top.

The horizontal axis represents pitch, with those low rumbly noises on the left-hand side and screechy high-pitched sounds on the right-hand side.

The audiologist exposes the ear to a certain pitch at a sound that is likely audible to you and then turns down the sound until you can indicate that you just barely hear it.  This process is repeated multiple times with different pitched sounds so as to build up enough reference points to draw a graph. Typically, the audiologist uses some benchmark frequencies which include 125Hz through octave and inter-octave increments up to 8000 Hz.

For a normal ear with healthy hearing, the points form a line along the top of the chart. With hearing loss the pattern changes depending on which frequencies are affected. For example, a person with profound hearing loss would have the points lying along the bottom of the graph. Someone with high-frequency hearing loss would have a steady line with a downward slope to the right hand side. A person with low-frequency loss has an upward slope on the left leading up to a plateau.

This pattern gives the audiologist valuable information about the nature of your individual hearing difficulties. This is key to understanding which areas need correction and which hearing devices are best suited to your individual needs. In addition, looking at the pattern of hearing loss can give an early warn sign of certain health problems, such as cardiovascular disease; so completing a hearing test can troubleshoot for wider issues.

Be assured that a hearing test is a non-painful, non-invasive procedure that is entirely beneficial to your overall health. If you have any concerns about having a hearing test, your audiologist will be happy to discuss them and put your mind at ease.