How smartphone app can detect hearing loss?

The smartphone hearing test app can be operated by non-specialists

There is an "invisible epidemic" afflicting the world, but it's not contagious or infectious, and there are often no outward symptoms.

It is hearing loss - a condition that can still have profound consequences, experts say. "Hearing loss is considered an invisible epidemic because people don't see it or know that someone suffers from it," says De Wet Swanepoel, professor of audiology at South Africa's Pretoria University.

Prof Swanepoel hopes his HearScreen app will extend hearing loss diagnosis to remote areas

"Not even parents may realise their child has hearing loss before critical developmental periods have lapsed."

Delays in diagnosis can affect the educational attainment and life chances of children in particular. One in 10 children globally have "educationally significant" hearing loss, says Prof Swanepoel.

HearScreen says the app conforms to international standards

The problem is that there aren't enough trained audiologists able to go out to sometimes very remote, rural areas to diagnose the condition. This is where the smartphone is making a big difference.


An app called HearScreen, the result of a research project led by Prof Swanepoel and Dr Herman Myburgh at Pretoria University, can detect hearing loss with just a low-cost smartphone and a pair of headphones.

Complete with real-time background noise monitoring, the app turns a mobile phone's microphone into a calibrated sound level meter.

You put the headphones on, and the tester, sitting behind you, uses the phone to send audio beeps at different volumes to your ears. If you can hear them you raise your hand and the tester records your responses.

It's all very simple - the app can screen two ears in less than 60 seconds and its makers claim that the system is six times cheaper than traditional testing equipment.

The data captured is stored to the cloud where specialists can access and analyse it remotely. The "clinically validated" app can be operated effectively by non-specialists, the company says, making it ideally suited for use in remote locations.

"More than 80% of the app's usage is in underserved and rural areas," says Prof Swanepoel, "providing many populations with access to hearing testing for the first time."

If a test diagnoses hearing loss, the app can refer the patient by text to the closest healthcare facility for follow-up services. Shannon Kruyt, an audiologist at HearInAfrica, which provides hearing care in schools in a number of African countries, knows all about this "invisible epidemic".

She says: "[HearScreen] is improving my work because the screening of hearing can now be done at a community-based level, without audiologists needing to go out into the field.

"The biggest challenge we are facing is the disparity between the shortage of audiologists and prevalence of hearing loss in Africa. HearScreen has been a massive game changer."

The app has also won the approval of partners such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and USAID.