Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 16:26:44 -0600 (MDT)
From: Ali Zimmerman 
To: Larry Zimmerman ,
     Karen Zimmerman 
Subject: hearing test results

Just got back from my lastest hearing test.  The results are very
interesting.  First of all, speech discrimination is up to 60%, while it
was at something like 5% at Iowa.  This is dramatic, and far above where I
thought it was.  I thought I was getting about 60% with lipreading.
Anyway, for the tonal test, I'm at a normal range of 20 decibels on the
low frequencies, angling down to 70 on the higher ones (4000 Hz) and then
back up to 60 at 8000Hz.  I think my lowest point in Iowa was at 90
decibels, so again a great improvement.

The good news is that if it stays at this range, a hearing aid will help
improve things like hearing the phone ring and the doorbell and maybe even
TV and radio.  Word recognition wil still only be at 60%, but it will be
an amplified 60%.  We'll see how the test in 2 weeks looks.  I have
officially gone from "severe" deafness in the left ear to "moderate".  I'm
assuming the right is still "profound".  We didn't even bother to test it.

And just for reference, left ear from Sept 17, 1999:

And the right ear from Sept 17, 1999:

(right ear is currently flatlined across the bottom.)

What do these results mean?

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