Undiagnosed hearing loss has been shown to increase the risk or impact of various other health conditions. Hearing aids can help reduce these risks and improve patients’ quality of life.
People often need to be persuaded to speak to their GP about their hearing difficulties. By talking to your patients about hearing loss and the benefits of hearing aids, you can help motivate them to take action sooner.
Identifying hearing loss
Patients may appear to have normal hearing in a quiet consulting room, but if they report difficulty in other situations, they could be losing sensitivity to high frequency sounds.
If a patient mentions that they’re struggling to hear, it’s important to give them a preliminary hearing assessment.
Preliminary assessments for hearing loss
Always perform otoscopy to check for wax and any outer and middle ear pathology.
Perform a hearing check. This can be a handheld pure tone check or an or an audiometry screen at 25dB across 500hz, 1, 2 and 4 KHz.
Use a tuning fork to assess for symmetrical hearing loss and whether it is conductive or sensorineural in nature.
Referring patients
A patient can usually be referred direct to audiology if they appear to have age-related hearing loss and none of the following additional problems:
- dizziness
- significantly asymmetrical hearing loss – in this case, an auditory nerve tumour or stroke must be excluded
- sudden hearing loss
- ear infection
- any other outer or middle ear pathology
- occupational (noise-induced) hearing loss
- occluding wax
How hearing aids can help your patients
Hearing aids help people communicate, stay socially active and manage their own health.
Evidence suggests that hearing aids are most effective when fitted early. However, people wait an average of 10 years before seeking help and many people who could benefit from hearing aids do not have them.