It’s been a busy conference season. With our last event of the year now behind us, I’ve had a chance to reflect on some common themes I heard while speaking with so many of you this year. One thing I heard over and over was the wish to move out of the clinic, and take hearing testing on the road. And to do this, many of you have been looking to buy a portable audiometer.
I’m on a short plane ride home reflecting on my last few days spent with The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) and its affiliate Vital Strategies. Together they have been working on a Phase III Clinical Trial to test simpler and shorter treatment regimes for patients suffering from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
Performing a hearing test requires taking several factors into consideration with one of the most important being the reason for the test itself. With traditional manual audiometers, the configuration is typically determined just prior to, or during testing by the tester using their training and years of expertise to determine the optimal settings for each patient. In this new age of evolving audiometric technology, it is now possible to pre-set one or several specific configurations for automated testing. This can prove particularly useful when testing groups of individuals for a common goal.
Do you know what a Pure Tone Average is? Everybody knows what 20/20 means. 120/80. 3.5–1. If optimal eyesight, blood pressure, and cholesterol ratios are considered common knowledge, why then are so few familiar with Pure Tone Average or PTA? It starts by understanding exactly what it means. Let us explain.
According to the World Health Organization, 360 million people worldwide – a full 5% of the population – suffer from disabling hearing loss. The majority of these people live in low and middle-income countries where access to hearing testing is limited or non-existent.