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Old 10th October 2017, 11:21 PM   #136
dann
Penultimate Amazing
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 19,539
Originally Posted by Sherkeu View Post
Exactly. How does a doctor verify 'hearing loss' independent of the patients reporting?

Normal hearing tests use tones where the patient raises their hand when they can hear it. To really determine it, they'd have to look at how the brain itself responds to sound, independent of what the person says they can/cannot hear.

According to this recent article in Wired, there are objective ways of diagnosing impaired hearing:
Quote:
“Hair cells give off wee little whistles when functioning normally—otoacoustic emissions—that can test if they’re functioning normally. And then there’s auditory brain-stem testing to see if the damage is central instead of peripheral.”
The rest of the article hypothesizes that a combination of chemicals (ototoxicity) and sonics might have caused the symptoms suffered by the U.S. spies in Cuba.
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