[Prescription of hearing aids - examples for limits and misindication (author's transl)]

For example there are described forms of hearing disorders in which the prescription of a hearing aid is inadvisible, ineffective or seeming unexpected good. However, an explanation for this resulted only from making use of all possibilities of audiometric diagnostic. This is illustrated in patients with endocranial tumors, with diffuse neural hearing disorder, and with psychogenic or psychogenic superimposed hearing impairment. The term of "inner ear hearing disorder", therefore, even in the prescription of hearing aids should not comprise all those impairments of hearing in which the values of air and bone conduction are identical; i.e. the medical audiologic examination cannot be restricted to the pure tone threshold. The speech-audiogram may give decisive hints; often, however, versatile additional examinations are necessary to get an impression of the patient's subjective auditory picture.