Hyperacusis

Signs and Symptoms
Diagnosis
Treatment

Diagnosis

An audiologist will begin by conducting a thorough physical examination and asking the patient about medical history, including questions about the length and severity of symptoms. A hearing test or audiogram will be given, which is a graph that depicts a person's ability to hear sounds at different frequencies.

It is important to note, however, that most people with true hyperacusis don't appear to have any hearing loss as measured and recorded on an audiogram. They may have difficulty hearing speech in noisy environments or in poor listening conditions, even when hearing tests show no hearing loss. This is sometimes called obscure auditory dysfunction or auditory processing difficulty.

Reviewed by health care specialists at UCSF Medical Center.
Last updated August 29, 2007