A variety of factors must be taken into account before an individual is considered to be a candidate for a hearing aid. These factors also depend on whether the individual is an adult or a child.

One major misconception concerning the candidacy of hearing aid use revolves around the type of hearing loss. In the past, some physicians were trained to believe that hearing aids were not helpful for sensorineural hearing losses. However, most patients fitted with hearing aids have sensorineural hearing loss, and those who are fitted properly have reported increased communication abilities from the use of hearing aids.

Audiologic test results primarily are used to determine the hearing aid candidacy for adults. Other factors, such as motivation, perceived handicap, and social needs, also are considered.

Audiologic results including pure-tone thresholds, speech reception thresholds, and speech discrimination scores in quiet and noise are used to define the type, degree, and configuration of hearing loss.

In addition, most comfortable loudness and uncomfortable loudness levels help in determining the patient's dynamic range. The dynamic range for speech can be defined as the difference in decibels between the speech reception threshold and the uncomfortable loudness level.

All the above tests are used to determine the frequency response curve, gain, and maximum output of the patient's hearing aid.

In addition to these tests, which are completed with the patient using earphones, sound-field versions of these tests can help determine the binaural hearing abilities of the patient and help with fitting verification of the hearing aid.

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