Picture of a woman with letters coming out her mouth



1. Otolaryngologist



2. Sensorineural


3. Audiological

Yeah, that one is tough, too. The pronunciation is: [ô′dē-ŏl′ə-jē-kel] and it refers to something that is related to audiology, which is the study of hearing. Another word that falls into that line of thinking is an audiologist, which is a person that performs and interprets professional hearing tests such as the pure tone audiometry or the otoacoustic emission measurement.

Those tests might sound like just more of the same tongue twisters but, ultimately, all these words describe the exam process used to assess your hearing deficits and strengths. The goal is to determine the level of hearing loss you might have and make recommendations for devices that can help like hearing aids.

4. Presbycusis

Hard to pronounce, [prez-by-coo-sis], but it is a word you do need to know. This is the condition that most people call age-related hearing loss. Presbycusis isn’t about age, though. It is the cumulation of various stressors that eventually affect hearing ability. Every time you put on those headphones, you are damaging the delicate mechanisms of the ear, leading you one step closer to that age-related hearing loss.

5. Tympanometry

It sounds a little like what you might play in band class, but tympanometry refers to a type of hearing test. Pronounced [tim-panohm-i-tree], this exam introduces air pressure into the ear canal to see how the different components function. Specifically, it measures the mobility of the eardrum (tympanic membrane) and then tells the hearing specialist if there is fluid there, how well the middle ear system words and the ear canal volume.

6. Ototoxicity


7. Audiogram

