The value of preventive ear checks
Modern medicine focuses its efforts not only on the diagnosis and treatment of diseases but also primarily on their prevention.
By extension, in pediatric otolaryngology, the value of preventive screening, and especially in the audiological field, is invaluable.
Many diseases that impair the hearing of young patients can be treated much more easily if the diagnosis is made early with a preventive clinical and audiological examination.
So if a child frequently asks us to repeat what we have told him, regularly asks what did you say? what? asks to turn up the television or music, this child, regardless of other factors, should be examined very carefully by a pediatric otolaryngologist.
The age of preventive audiological examination begins immediately after the birth of the child, where in almost all maternity hospitals the first assessment is made with the so-called otoacoustic emissions (a procedure that does not burden the newborn in any way).
From the age of one to five years, the preventive examination is carried out in the pediatric otolaryngology clinic, where in addition to the clinical examination, tympanometry, toy acuometry and speech audiometry are performed and, if necessary, the distortion products of otoacoustic emissions.
A detailed audiological examination is fortunately performed in rare cases.
For older children where cooperation is better, the so-called tone audiogram is also performed.
For us at the Athens Pediatric Center, prevention is particularly important. It takes place in a very child-friendly environment but at the same time with all safety rules for them and their companions.
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