Optimization of Approaches to Early Diagnosis of Hearing Impairment in Primary Care

Abstract

Almost 500 million people worldwide suffer from hearing loss or impairment. The causes of hearing loss are very diverse. Hearing loss can be caused by hereditary and non-hereditary genetic factors, certain complications during pregnancy and delivery, infectious and chronic diseases, head or ear trauma, etc. A common problem today is hearing impairment. Development of diagnostic algorithm for hearing disorders in primary care will improve the quality of diagnosis, optimize the patient’s management and ensure the earliest possible treatment and prevention measures, which will positively effect the results of treatment and patients quality of life. Primary care physicians use the ICPC-2 classification in their practice. They collect complaints, anamnesis, and test hearing ability. There are various methods to examine auditory function, most of which are based on the patient’s subjective data about perception of the heard sounds. These include perception of whispered and spoken speech, tuning fork experiments (accumetry), audiometry. Hearing is considered normal if a whispered speech is perceived at a distance of 6 m. The whispered speech degree of perception is the greatest distance from which the patient correctly repeats the words spoken by the doctor fro three times. Primary care physicians conduct a tuning fork examination of the patient using the Weber test (W), Rinne test (R), Schwabach test (Sch). Timely hearing examination with the help of modern diagnostic methods in primary care and the correct assessment of the potential capabilities of the auditory system of patients allows correct evaluation of its condition. The normal functioning of the hearing organ is one of the crucial factors for the overall development and healthy human life. After all, thanks to the auditory analyzer, a person receives information about the surrounding world.