When you lose your hearing, you go to an ENT clinic. You’ll have a hearing test there and get the result.

On this post, we’ll show how to read an audiogram for those who’d say “Once explained by my doctor but I don’t understand well”.

Samples of audiogram we use here are all in Japanese with English translation, because this article is for expatriates living in Japan.

If you have your audiogram now, you can check it while reading.

What is the Audiogram

The audiogram is a record of hearing thresholds evaluated by audiometer.

This is an actual audiogram provided by one of our patients in Japan. The left side is immediately after the onset of symptom whereas the right side is 3 weeks after.

We remade it with colors.

You can see some marks like “〇“, “ד, “［“, “］“, “↓“.

〇, ×, ［, ］, ↓, what do they mean?

“〇” and “×” mean air conduction hearing threshold. Air conduction hearing thresholds are measured with headphones (sound transmitted through the vibration of the air). “〇” is for the right ear whereas “×” is for the left. Sometimes they are colored like “〇” and “ד. Sound is the vibration of the air. So it’s called “air conduction”.

“［” and “］” mean bone conduction hearing threshold. Bone conduction hearing thresholds are measured by vibrating the bone (sound transmitted through the vibration of the bone). “［” is for the right ear whereas “］” is for the left. It is measured with a trembling machine attached to the bone behind the ear (mastoid process).

When the sound reaches your brain, it passes this way: the vibration of the air, the eardrum, the auditory ossicles, the auditory nerves, then the brain. Omitting the vibration of the eardrum, bone conduction hearing test clarifies where the problem occurs on the route of hearing.

“Scale Out” means unmeasurable. If you can’t hear even at maximum volume of the sound the machine (audiometer) can generate, it is indicated as “↓” beside “〇“, “ד, “［“, “］“.

The above chart is read as “the tested person is not able to hear maximum volume of the audiometer which are 70dB and 125dB at the frequency of 125Hz and 250Hz respectively”.

You can click a below link for reading a related next post.

How to read an Audiogram (2)