Auditory Brainstem Response Testing (ABR)

An ABR is anoth­er type of objec­tive eval­u­a­tion tool used to obtain infor­ma­tion regard­ing a patient’s hear­ing. In addi­tion to adults, this test is used in diag­nos­ing hear­ing prob­lems in new­borns, tod­dlers and preschool­ers or patients who can­not answer ques­tions or iden­ti­fy objects. The ABR test relies on the brain’s respons­es to dif­fer­ent types of stim­uli pre­sent­ed at var­i­ous sound lev­els to assist in diag­no­sis hear­ing loss. This type of test­ing is ordered when tra­di­tion­al audiom­e­try can­not be com­plet­ed or when fur­ther infor­ma­tion is need­ed to rule out pos­si­ble med­ical issues.